


Smoke Drifting By

by vailkagami



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-16
Updated: 2011-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-27 10:30:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vailkagami/pseuds/vailkagami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When fireman Dean Smith rescues Sam Jones from his burning apartment, he can't begin to imagine what kind of impact the strangely vulnerable young man will have on his life. Not an AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for spn_j2_xmas, recipient is dont_hate_me01. For the story I used two of her prompts. Mainly this one: "Firefighter!Jensen rescues injured!Jared and realizes that Jared’s got more problems than only smoke inhalation or burn wounds." Since I don't write RPS, I mixed it with the only non-RPS prompt she gave, which simply said, "Any fic Dean/Sam – top!Dean." Apart from that I tried to include as many of her Likes as fit in the context.
> 
> This fic in unbetaed, so all mistakes are my own. It's also bullshit in regard to medical and legal issues, I'm afraid. In the end I reassured myself that in a world were someone can completely recover from a badly broken leg in three weeks and several severe concussions in a row have no consequences whatsoever, we can simply pretened that this all makes sense here.

Dean hated fire. He knew a lot of people didn’t, thought it was romantic and cosy and all that shit, but in his experience fire mostly destroyed. With fiery passion, so to speak. It had its practical uses, sure, and it wasn’t like he was sacred to use it or something, but he would never light one just for the heck of it.  
   
Because he hated fire. But that was okay because as a fireman, it was his job to put them out.  
   
There was a lot of satisfaction in that and the fact that people paid him to do so made it even more satisfactory. If you hate something, he always said, get a job in which you are a hero for killing it.  
   
A lot of people gave him weird looks when he said that.  
   
   


 

-

   
   
   
One of the reasons why Dean hated fire was that it killed. In the battle man against flames, with no weapons on either side, fire usually won. In the battle fire against furniture fire _always_ won, and that further limited the chances of any human that might happen to fight on the same side as the furniture, because it had a habit of turning against them. As would the carpet and the ceiling.  
   
For this reason, it was house fires Dean hated most. Fortunately, most fires he had to fight were small ones and everyone was out safely by the time the fire fighters arrived, but there had been one or two cases in which people lost everything they owned, sometimes even their lives.  
   
On days like that, the job sucked pretty badly. He never again wanted to tell a hysteric woman that he would not send anyone into the burning, already collapsing building to get out her husband because he was likely dead anyway and the safety of his men came first. It was hardest not to go in himself, but if he had done that he would have gotten hurt or died and someone else would have come to get him and maybe would have gotten hurt as well. He had learned his lessons – not like they gave his job to just any reckless fool with a hero complex, mind you – but it still went against his nature and that night he’d gotten pretty damn drunk.  
   
Fortunately, no one had expected him to be in top condition the next day.  
   
   


 

-

   
   
   
There were times when being a hero was allowed and Dean revelled in them. Jumping into danger and flames he felt most alive, not that he ever told anyone. He didn’t ever tell them how hard it was for him to leave when reason demanded it if he hadn’t looked into every room yet, checked every wardrobe, even if they already told him there was no one inside anymore. He couldn’t stop looking, though sometimes he didn’t even know for what. With everything that was lost to the flames without having been found expendable by him beforehand he felt the possibility of loss like a stone in the pit of his stomach that had to be dumped into a pool of alcohol.  
   
It was this weird, unhealthy obsession to keep looking that made him ignore the call back on what would turn out to be the most important day of his life. This part of the building was lost, it was no longer safe for him to be inside, but there was one more door at the end of this corridor and he kicked it in even as he spoke into his radio that he was coming back now.  
   
Behind the door there was a ridiculously small apartment that was filled with smoke and already burning. The fire had started on the fourth floor, right above, and parts of the ceiling had collapsed. Dean could barely see a thing but he found the man anyway, this long-haired boy half-buried under rubble and not moving.  
   
   


 

-

   
   
   
Dean saved a life that day which made him a hero, but he didn’t care because there was no certainty that the life was saved after all. The kid had inhaled too much smoke, his hands and arms and chest were badly burned and the collapsing ceiling had broken his bones. Dean had had no chance to take his injuries into consideration and made them worse when he carried him out draped across his shoulders. (The kid was tall but thin as a stick, though he had the frame of someone once strong.)  
   
He went to the hospital later, to check up on him, following some strange emotional attachment to someone he had saved as part of his job that didn’t make all that much sense but no one mocked him for. He had never before felt the need to check on the involuntary clients of his fire fighting business with more than a phone call to the local hospital, but then, he’d never before had pulled out someone whose survival was not a certainty. (There had been a young woman once who got hurt in a gas explosion. Upon hearing she had lost her leg, Dean had felt compelled to visit her, but when he arrived at the hospital she was surrounded by her parents and siblings and he had walked away without making his presence known.)  
   
The kid was out of surgery by the time the fire had been extinguished and all work was done in the early hours of the morning. He was in intensive care when Dean arrived and a doctor told him there would be more surgeries when he was stronger. He spoke of broken ribs and legs, of internal bleedings they had been able to stop and of clothes burned into his skin by the heat. He also said the boy was lucky, and that they didn’t yet know who he was or who to call.  
   
He also said they needed that information for insurance matters, and that felt like a déjà-vu for no damn reason and made Dean walk into the kid’s room without another word to stand beside him look at the unconscious boy breathing through a tube down his throat and surrounded by beeping machines until another doctor came and chased him away.  
   
 _At least his stupid hair got away_ , he thought, absurdly, as he walked home.  
   
   


 

-

   
   
   
The next day, Dean only wanted to call the hospital, check if the kid had woken up yet, if they had a name, if his family had shown up. The answers were no, no, and no, but his friend Bob, who worked for the police, was able to at least tell Dean who the apartment he had found the boy in belonged to. While without papers or anyone to identify him they couldn’t be sure the guy in the hospital was indeed Samuel Jones, it was still a useful information for the hospital to have and Dean decided to give it to them. He’d meant to call, but spontaneously decided to drop in before going home, since the hospital was almost on his way.  
   
The kid, who Dean decided to call Sam until anyone told him that was wrong, was still unconscious, but at least he was breathing on his own now, albeit though an oxygen mask that obscured most of his face. He’d live, the doctor said. He also needed help that went beyond medical attention.  
   
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dean asked.  
   
“I’m sorry,” the doctor answered. “This is a matter of doctor-patient confidentiality. I am not allowed to tell you.”  
   
In which case he shouldn’t have said anything in the first place, Dean thought, and nearly strangled him because now he wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about it until he found his answers. Which he would. So the doctor should just tell him, to save time and spare Dean a couple of restless nights.  
   
The doctor did not agree with his logic. “It’s none of your business,” he said, “Rest assured that this is not something you could have saved him from with a bucket of water. So it shouldn’t concern you. You don’t even know him.”  
   
“I’m just naturally curious,” Dean justified his interest and wondered how he could get rid of this unforthcoming medic so he could continue to stare brooding at that person he didn’t even know.  
   
   


 

-

   
   
   
Bob from the police let Dean know the next day that they still didn’t know if their boy was Samuel Jones or not, because they couldn’t find a picture of Samuel Jones anywhere, and no dental information either. The only file they found on him, anywhere, didn’t tell them more than that Samuel Jones had been born in 1983, was an only-child and had lost his parents at an early age. No known family. Bob had asked the neighbours from the burned out building, but all he got was that the man who lived there didn’t talk to them and hardly ever left the room.  
   
He never had visitors, but the old lady next door complained that he tended to yell into his phone in the middle of the night and disturb her sleep. And sometimes he just screamed. Two times already she had knocked on his door to see if he needed help but he always just yelled at her to go away. Another two times she nearly called the police to complain but in the end she never did. Poor boy was clearly deeply disturbed and didn’t need the extra trouble.  
   
Interesting information that in the end did nothing to tell Dean who this guy was or why he had problems. Well, apparently he did have problems alright, but how the doctor could tell was beyond Dean – unless he’d lived in the same building and heard the boy scream at night. In which case he was a douchebag for not stepping in to help him before.  
   
The grand total of Dean’s knowledge about the Sam Jones: The kid was an antisocial freak.  
   
The apartment didn’t tell them anything beyond confirming that Sam was even more of a freak than his neighbour suspected. It wasn’t quite as tiny as Dean had thought at first: there were two more rooms that survived the fire mostly unharmed, but the doors to both of them were locked, closets had been placed in front of them and the rooms themselves were completely empty. For whatever reason, Sam’s life had been limited to the small living room with the build-in kitchen, a couch but no bed and just a couple of books on the shelves that were now burned to ashes and keeping their titles to themselves. The single window was blocked with a plastic plate now half-melted, the refrigerator was mostly empty. There was no television, no computer, and no phone.  
   
Perhaps it was a cell phone Sam had been yelling into in the middle of the night. It was very possible, especially since half the ceiling of the room had collapsed so if there was a cell, it might have been crushed and they’d never find it.  
   
It was an easy explanation that didn’t satisfy Dean in the least.  
   
   


 

-

   
   
   
Because a secret had been thrown in Dean’s way and it would not let him go until he found all the answers, he kept gravitating towards the guy he saved from the fire, and honestly, that was the only reason he was there, in his hospital room, every day after work, no matter what his stupid colleagues thought. That was the only reason why he was there when the boy finally opened his eyes.  
   
He immediately started flailing; struggling against the wires and tubes he was covered with as it they were tentacles trying to crush him. Then his eyes fell on Dean and he froze.  
   
For one perfect moment their eyes met and everything was still.  
   
“Sam?” Dean asked, unsure because that might not be his name after all.  
   
Sam stared screaming.  
   
   


 

-

   
   
   
Dean wasn’t allowed back with Sam for a day. When he managed to get past the doctors on Sunday morning, he found his boy on the bed, which was raised to allow him a half-sitting position. His wrists were covered in bandages for the burns and around those bandages they had fastened restraints that were padded and soft and still had to hurt him. His eyes were open but staring at nothing and he was very quiet. Dean knew at once that he had been drugged into submission.  
   
Then the boy’s eyes focussed on him and Dean saw that he was wrong. The gaze that met his was very clear, and not at all crazy.  
   
“Hey,” the boy said, his voice quiet and weak.  
“Hey,” Dean said back. Then he asked “Sam Jones?” because that finally needed confirmation.  
   
Sam nodded.  
   
“I’m Dean Smith,” Dean introduced himself and Sam smiled a little, showing appreciation for the lame-ass names they both were blessed with. Dean’s heart became a little lighter. “How are you?”  
   
Sam gave a vague shrug. “I am tied to a hospital bed.”  
   
So yes, maybe that had been a stupid question. Sam didn’t seem to mind, though. He actually seemed to be pretty calm about his situation. “I’m sorry,” Dean said anyway, because it appeared the appropriate thing to say.  
   
Sam didn’t seem to think so. He looked vaguely confused. “What for?”  
   
“Uhm, you being tied to a bed?”  
   
“And how is that your fault?”  
   
Dean didn’t know what to reply to that, because “If I hadn’t saved your life you wouldn’t be in this situation” seemed somewhat idiotic. So he just shrugged vaguely. “Why are you tied up, anyway?”  
   
“Apparently I’m a danger to myself.”  
   
Again, Sam didn’t appear overly concerned with that.  
   
“Why do they think that?”  
   
“Because I’m too badly hurt to be a danger to anyone else.”  
   
“It still comes down to the danger thing.”  
   
“Yes, it’s kind of funny.” Sam smiled painfully and lifted his hands to tug playfully at his bonds. The movement made him flinch and Dean could imagine that it was quite painful considering the kid’s injuries, but he did it again right after for good measure.  
   
Dean decided that he would have to talk to his doctor again. The unforthcoming ass.  
   
So what he knew about his kid after a few minutes of talking to him and four days of staring at his unconscious form like some kind of creepy stalker was that he was a little crazy and that Dean really would have like to…  
   
Well, what? He didn’t even know what he wanted to do, but he wanted it really badly and this boy had to be part of it. Which really helped, and it made a lot of sense, too.  
   
“Is there anyone you want me to contact for you?” he asked, because that was one action that actually did make sense. But Sam shook his head.  
   
“No.”  
   
“No friends? Family?” Dean winched, because he already knew Sam had no family left. But Sam didn’t seem to mind, except that his gaze drifted off Dean and to something far away, just for a moment. Just long enough for Dean to want to give him a hug.  
   
And then he fucking smiled. “Amnesia, actually,” he said. “I don’t remember a fucking thing about my past, so if there ever was someone who cared about me, I’ve forgotten about them.”  
   
Oh yes, that was definitely something to smile about. But then, who was Dean to judge? He needed to overcome his surprise first, anyway. “Amnesia,” he echoed. “How did that happen? Did you hit your head or something? I don’t recall -”  
   
“It didn’t happen now,” Sam interrupted him. “I remember the fire quite clearly.” Once again a shadow fell over his face and he shuddered. For a second it looked like he was gone completely, leaving only his body sitting there on the bed, but then he came back and explained, “I lost my memory about a year ago. Don’t know how. I just woke up with no injuries that could explain it.” He stopped for a second to cough and catch his breath. “Got my papers on me and there’s a bank account to my name that’s enough to get by, but no one knew me.”  
   
His words hit a familiar cord inside Dean and made him squirm uncomfortably. “And you never regained your memory? Wow, that sucks.”  
   
Sam shrugged. “It’s okay,” he managed to force out between coughs that reminded Dean that he shouldn’t make him talk that much – seriously, what was he thinking?  
   
“Can’t imagine how that could possibly be okay,” he muttered, except that he kind of could.  
   
Didn’t seem like anyone ever missed this kid, and that was what really sucked.  
   
   


 

-

   
   
   
The next day at work, Dean asked around among the other firemen, but not one of them remembered anything about a boy without memories showing up out of nowhere. There was nothing about it in the papers, and that was pretty weird – until he went back to Sam and Sam told him that it wasn’t here he woke up, it was in Arizona, some four hundred thousand miles down the road.  
   
“Why did you come here, then?”  
   
“Why not? Does it matter where no one knows you?”  
   
“Guess not. But… here?” Okay, so the town wasn’t that bad, but it was pretty far from anything interesting, and if Dean had all the world to choose from, the probably wouldn’t settle here. Except he’d totally done so, so that argument was invalid.  
   
“Happened to be the closest place with affordable apartments when I… had to stop.”  
   
Dean didn’t miss the second of hesitation, but decided not to ask – not yet, anyway. Not that he wasn’t going to. But Sam looked tired, like he would drop at any moment. He was pale, his cheeks hollow, his eyes looking like he’d smeared ink around them. Not a glorious sight, but then, he was recovering from serious injuries and actually quite lucky to be alive.  
   
His breath was catching in his chest every now and then and his hands trembling, but at least he wasn’t restrained this time. Dean took it as a sign that he didn’t give the doctors any more reason for it.  
   
   


 

-

   
   
   
Outside the room Dean met Sam’s doctor, who looked about as tired as Dean was feeling. The man nodded at him in when he saw him leave the room.  
   
“How is Mr. Jones?” he asked.  
   
“Shouldn’t you know? You’re the doctor here.” Dean shrugged. “Full with painkillers as he is, he’s doing pretty well. I mean, considering.”  
   
“He didn’t want any painkillers,” the doctor said.  
   
Dean thought he’d head that wrong. “Come again? You didn’t give him anything for the pain? Do you know his fucking list of injuries? _I_ know his fucking list of injuries, so you should fucking do, too!” Ten months ago, when he had just started his job here, Dean had broken two bones in his hand during the evacuation of a building; a closet had fallen on it. And that had really fucking hurt, for ages. He’d been pretty happy about the painkillers then, and even with them it had hurt like a bitch. And now this guy was telling him that Sam with his shattered legs and broken rips and his goddamn burns didn’t get any.  
   
The doctor held up his hands in defense. “I said he doesn’t want any. We still gave him some – believe me, if we hadn’t, you would’ve noticed. But those were only the ones we could get away with against his will. I would have given him much stronger stuff, but he refused.”  
   
Dean thought about that and finally shook his head, beat. “Why?”  
   
The doctor just shrugged. “I guess he simply likes the pain.”  
   
   


 

-

   
   
   
Dean asked Sam about that the next day, but Sam had a fever and didn’t say anything except “Helps,” which didn’t really help at all. He fell asleep soon enough, but Dean stayed anyway – not like he never watched him sleep before, right? So he was there when Sam started to toss around and whimper and scream.  
   
Dean tried to wake him, but there was no point. Instead, Sam started crying, and then he started speaking, but the words made no sense, Dean wasn’t even sure if they were words at all. It sure as Hell wasn’t English.  
   
It was pretty disturbing, but what disturbed Dean most of all was that some of the sounds Sam made sounded disturbingly like his name.  
   
Finally, after what felt like forever, a couple of doctors and nurses came in to pump Sammy full of tranquilizers. He fell silent after that (eventually) but the fact that he was still crying soundlessly made Dean wonder if he had really calmed down or if they merely took his ability to scream.  
   
   


 

-

   
   
   
The next weeks Dean was working the night shift. Usually, he didn’t mind because he had no family and no social life that went beyond the occasional chick picked up in a bar, but in this case it was a bit of an inconvenience, because his shift ended long before visiting hour at the hospital started, so he couldn’t go to Sam after work. He went before, instead, but it wasn’t the same. There was a set time when he had to leave, and he hated that. Dean didn’t like being on a set schedule, never had.  
   
He wanted to be able to stay if Sam had another nightmare or flipped out again.  
   
But Sam was mostly just unconscious, and if he wasn’t, he was in so much pain the only thing he could contribute to their meetings was making Dean ache just from looking at him. He still refused to take any stronger painkillers – until the doctors decided that he was so miserable they were justified to drug him out of his mind even against his wishes.  
   
When Dean came the next day, he was send away at the front desk with the explanation that Mr. Jones didn’t take any visitors right now.  
   
Dean didn’t like that either. It made him wonder, and it ruined his mood.  
   
His friends at the station noticed, of course – nothing escaped their attention that offered possible material for gossip. It was Jim who mentioned it first, with a wide gin on his face that made Dean want to punch him because Sam wasn’t well, and Sam wasn’t taking visitors and that could mean all kinds of things.  
   
“It’s really not that much of a surprise you’re so smitten with the kid,” Jim said loud enough for everyone in the fucking building to hear him. “I mean, he’s exactly your type.”  
   
And of course it had to be Jim, who thought he was so smart and had to let everyone know how smart he was, who had noticed even before Dean did that for all his proud and groomed heterosexuality, he had a habit of staring after guys every now and then. And that all those guys where very tall and had floppy brown hair.  
   
Which was ridiculous. It was even more ridiculous that Dean had actually slept with one of those guys, heterosexuality be dammed. And it had been nice enough, okay, but it had also left him unsatisfied, as if something wasn’t right, so he put it down as getting the proof that he was really not into men, thank you very much. (Except that the women he slept with left him with the same feeling, all the time,)  
   
Jim, thank Heaven, didn’t know that. And Dean fought down the urge to become violent and just shrugged, going with the joke. “Too skinny for my tastes,” he said. “Wasn’t it you who so cleverly observed that I seem to be into the strong guys?”  
   
“True,” Jim admitted. “Well, I didn’t see him that closely – if you recall, not all of us sit by his bedside holding his hand every fucking day.” His grin returned. “Perhaps if you feed him he’ll gain some muscle. Poor abandoned orphan, I bet he’d be so grateful.”  
   
“If you say one more word I’m gonna cut out your tongue.”  
   
“Hey, don’t take it personally.” Jim lifted his hands and took a step back, as if he was actually taking Dean seriously – which was just ridiculous, wasn’t it? “I’m just saying he should really thank you for saving his life.”  
   
Now that Dean thought about it, he didn’t think Sam had ever done that. Maybe he just wasn’t grateful.

 

  


-

   
   
   
When Dean got to see Sam next, the boy was tied to the bed again. He looked at Dean through bloodshot eyes and looked so miserable and hurting that Dean wanted to cut him loose and carry him out of the hospital because clearly, they were torturing him here.  
   
“No,” Sam said when Dean came closer. “Go away. Go away. Please.”  
   
“Sammy,” Dean said helplessly, reaching out for him, and Sam flinched at the sound of his voice.  
   
“Don’t touch me,” he pleaded, tears leaking out of his eyes. “Don’t, please, don’t touch me!” He began struggling against his restraints, began throwing himself around. His broken legs were trapped in a contraption, rendering him mostly immobile, but it still had to hurt him. So Dean moved on instinct, placing his hands on Sam’s body to keep him still.  
   
“No!” Sam screamed, his hoarse voice breaking. “No, please, no! Dean!”  
   
Dean pulled his hands back as if burned. But Sam screamed his name again before he started to just _scream_ , and it didn’t sound like he even meant _him_.  
   
It sounded like he was hoping for someone called Dean to come and save him.


	2. Chapter 2

After that, Dean wasn’t allowed to come back for three days. Sam’s doctor made clear in no uncertain terms that he would actually like it very much if Dean never came back at all because Sam had had bad reactions to basically everyone at some point, but Dean had topped them all. At the same time he admitted that Sam had asked for him in his clearer moments and that Dean was the only one who ever came to see him, so if he insisted on coming to this disturbed boy he didn’t even fucking know but wouldn’t leave alone for some reason, the doc wouldn’t stop him.  
   
How generous.  
   
He still didn’t tell Dean what was actually wrong with Sam, but Bob did. He asked questions about Sam at the hospital under the guise of investigating the cause of the fire that had landed him there in the first place, and Dean would owe him for that for the next three hundred years.  
   
“Your boy has problems,” he said one evening over beer, twelve hours before Dean was allowed back to Sam. “I mean, boy does he have problems! Take my advice and stay away from the kid. This isn’t gonna end well.”  
   
“Well, give me details,” Dean urged him on.  
   
Bob took a sip from his bottle. “For starters, he’s crazy.”  
   
“I kinda noticed.”  
   
“No, I mean, he’s crazy. He’s actually clinically insane. The doctors want to have him committed as soon as he’s well enough to leave their care. In fact, they are convinced that the only reason he wasn’t committed before is that he had no one to notice how troubled he is,”  
   
After everything he’s seen, the words don’t really come as a surprise, so Dean doesn’t understand why they hit him so hard. “I’ve talked to him. A lot. He was clear, he’s fucking smart. Okay, so he has nightmares, but come on! A house fell on him!”  
   
“He has nightmares, yeah. But he also has them when he is awake. There are good phases, okay, but there are bad ones as well, like the one you saw there. And then he’s a danger to himself. To others as well. Apparently he tried to attack a nurse, some pretty blond thing, yelling at her she should stop fucking with his mind. Almost fell out of bed and hurt himself even worse. Five minutes later he was completely fine.” Bob looked into Dean’s eyes and sighed. “You’ll have to admit that someone like that can’t be left alone. Even if he goes back to his hermit lifestyle, he’s gonna get himself killed sooner or later.”  
   
“He seemed to be doing fine until now,” Dean argued, but Bob shook his head.  
   
“He’s got injuries that don’t come from the fire. Cuts, mostly, and a few burns that are older. Doc thinks he did that to himself.”  
   
“Don’t be ridiculous.”  
   
“Dean, you’re the one who’s ridiculous. You don’t know the kid, so don’t think you can judge his mental state. He’s gonna fuck over your life if you let him.”  
   
“He’s just some kid who needs help!”  
   
“Help, yes, Professional help. When I told the guys at the hospital that I needed info on him because I’m investigating the fire, none of them was surprised. They didn’t doubt one moment that he might have started it.”  
   
“But he didn’t. We already know that. The fire started in the apartment above.”  
   
“That’s not the fucking point.” Bob ran a hand through his hair. He looked frustrated. “I’m not saying your little friend is evil or anything. I’m just saying that he is more than you can handle.”  
   
   


 

-

   
   
   
It had been Dean’s plan to get back to Sam the moment he could. In the end he didn’t.  
   
He didn’t because the night before, at three in the fucking morning, some asshole decided to smoke a cigarette in a fucking hay storage, so at half past three Dean and the others were throwing water at the storage, and then at the farmhouse because they hadn’t been on time to keep the fire from spreading. Everyone got out, which was something at least, but in the end they fought until sunrise to save a house that had been lost before they even got there.  
   
By the time Dean was finally able to change into his jeans and tennis shoes it was almost noon, and another hour passed before he could leave. He’d showered at the station, so all he had to do now was go home and fall into bed, but first he wanted to stop at the hospital. He had to stop at the hospital, in fact, just so no one would get the stupid idea that he wasn’t coming.  
   
Once in the hospital, he couldn’t help dropping the information at the desk – and within earshot of Sam’s physician – that the fire at Sam’s apartment building had been caused by faulty wiring on another floor, just as a bit of totally unrelated information. The woman at the front desk acknowledged it with the empty smile of those not giving a damn.  
   
In the end, he hesitated almost a full minute in front of the door to Sam’s room, trying to brace himself for what he might find when he went in. What he did find, when he found the courage, was Sam sitting on the bed unbound and awake, his pale face lighting up like a fucking forest fire when he recognized his visitor, and maybe Dean’s heat stopped for half a second there.  
   
“Dean!” Sam exclaimed. “You’re okay!”  
   
“Why wouldn’t I be?” What the heck had these guys told Sam about the reason for his absence?  
   
“I heard about the fire last night. I thought maybe… I’m glad you’re okay.”  
   
Great, so they decided that this kid was too fragile to be left without an army of shrinks, but they told him the latest disaster news? The latest disaster news concerning his only friend? Awesome.  
   
Though, Dean would be lying if he said Sam caring about him enough to worry didn’t give him a little… something.  
   
“Well, you seem to be doing well,” he observed. Of course, ‘well’ was a matter of viewpoint in this case. ‘Well’ meant that Sam needed a nasal cannula instead of full on intubation and that he could tell reality from nightmare.  
   
Sam nodded. He suddenly looked exhausted, though, as if now he knew Dean was alright the strength that had kept him upright just packed its bags and left. Dean knew the feeling too well.  
   
“If my fever stays as low as it is for another day, they’re going to operate my legs. See if they can get me walking again.”  
   
“Walk?” Dean echoed. “What do you mean?”  
   
“My legs have been shattered,” Sam told him without any of the gravity a statement like that demanded. “Apparently they aren’t all that optimistic about putting them back together again. There’s a lot of nerve and muscle damage as well. But I might get some mobility back.”  
   
“Some?” Again, Dean could only throw out an echo, dumb folded. “You mean they can’t fix you completely?”  
   
“Apparently not.”  
   
“What does ‘some mobility’ mean?”  
   
Sam shrugged. “I didn’t really ask.”  
   
His obvious disregard if his own health and future was grating on Dean. He felt irrational anger rise in him, pushed by irrational and inexplicable panic. “These are your fucking legs we’re talking about! Doesn’t it bother you in the least that you might never walk again? They were right, you really are fucking crazy!”  
   
The moment he said those words he regretted them. Sam’s face fell, for a second, then closed off.  
   
“I guess I am,” he said tensely. “Nice of you to finally notice.”  
   
Dean took a deep breath and tried to get a hold on the urge to throttle him. “You really do need someone to take care of you, you freak. What the hell is wrong with you?”  
   
Sam only blinked at him. “Excuse me, who are you again?”  
   
“I’m the guy who saved your life, and apparently the only one, yourself included, who gives a shit about you.”  
   
“You saved my life and now you can decide what I have to do with it? Is that it?” Sam didn’t yell. His voice was more of a hoarse whisper. “What am I, your fucking charity project? You don’t even fucking know me!”  
   
“Yeah, and keep this up and you’ll make sure that I lose any interest I might ever have had in getting to know you, bitch!”  
   
Dean didn’t know why this kid got under his skin so easily, He also didn’t know how he expected him to react, but certainly not like this. Sam flinched, his eyes turning wide while all color left his face. He looked like he was going to cry.  
   
Then he lifted his fist and smashed it down onto his broken legs with all the force he could muster.  
   
“What the fuck!” Dean jumped forward as Sam curled up in pain – a motion that had to hurt him even more, thanks to cracked rips and not nearly healed burns all over him, He grabs the kid’s shoulders to keep him from doing anything else to himself, but Sam seemed to be done. He looked up at Dean, covered in sweat and breathing hard.  
   
“You’re real,” he gasped in wonder, barely audible over the shrill beeping of a machine “You’re just a dick.”  
   
“Fuck, Kid,” Dean muttered and pulled him close. Sam buried his face in Dean’s chest and didn’t send him away.  
    


 

-

  
   
   
The doctors didn’t restrain Sam again that day because Dean told them, when they came running in, that he had accidentally bumped into Sam’s injured legs and caused the reaction. As a result the doctor mostly responsible for Sam almost kicked him out – he never liked him in the first place, probably wondering just like Sam had what the fuck he wanted with the boy.  
   
Dean had the next two days off anyway, and he took another two to be with Sam when he came out of surgery. The first day, Sam was mostly out of it, just lolling his head and whimpering softly. His hand reached for Dean’s whenever it was near him, though, so Dean felt justified for being there.  
   
Frustratingly, the doctors couldn’t give any clear prognosis yet. Maybe Sam would walk again, maybe not. In any case, more surgeries would be needed. And it would be a very long process, filled with physical therapy and a lot of pain. From all Dean knew Sam wouldn’t mind the last bit too much, but the therapy could turn out to be a problem for him.  
   
Especially since he didn’t seem to give a shit about himself, and there was no one else to take care of him.  
   
“They want to have me committed to a mental hospital,” Sam whispered when Dean asked him about that – if there wasn’t _anyone_ who could watch over him, make sure he took his meds and generally take care of him, because obviously he wouldn’t be able to do that himself for a long time. “They don’t think I should be on my own. And I don’t even have a place to stay anymore, let alone one adjusted to wheelchair needs.”  
   
For the first time ever, he looked terrified. Dean took his hand, trying to comfort him. “Maybe it’s for the best. I mean, it’s not a permanent thing. They might be able to help you there and then you can go home again.”  
   
“I don’t have a home,” Sam muttered. “And they can’t help me. They will pump be full with drug and take away the pain and put me into a fucking straightjacket, and after I tried to kill someone for the first time, they’ll lock me up permanently.” He trembled against Dean’s body. “What if I hurt somebody?”  
   
“What are you talking about?” Dean asked softly, because the boy didn’t make sense, but he felt that maybe he did and Dean just didn’t see it.  
   
Sam leaned back a little and wiped the tears off his face in a futile gesture. “I’m fucking crazy,” he said. “They’re right about that. But they won’t help me, they’ll just make it worse. I can handle it on my own, but they won’t let me. Now they know… but I need the pain, Dean, I really, need it. You’ve got to believe me.”  
   
It was hard, but on the other hand surprisingly easy. Dean just didn’t like the thought of Sam hurting himself “It grounds you,” he guessed. “Let’s you tell what’s real.”  
   
Sam nodded. “I have hallucinations,” he says quietly. “Bad dreams. And I can’t tell… but pain, pain tells me that this is real. You’re real. I wasn’t always sure of that.”  
   
“Why would you hallucinate me of all people?”  
   
“I did before,” Sam whispered.  
   
“What? When? Are you sure it was a hallucination?”  
   
“Pretty sure. Because that was before I even met you.”  
   
Dean opened his mouth to say something and shut it again. That was unexpected.  
   
“What, you’re psychic now?” he finally asked.  
   
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Sam glared at him through his tears. “I must have seen you somewhere, on the street or in the shop, and my subconscious created something out of it. I don’t know anyone, so it has to make do with random people, I guess. None of the people I see I actually know. Except…”  
   
Dean thought back to the first time Sam woke up and had a panic attack on him. It made sense now. “Except?”  
   
“My neighbors,” Sam revealed. It seemed like a pretty anticlimactic answer. But then he continued. “One of my first days in my apartment, they came to say Hi. I didn’t want to let them in, but they wouldn’t be turned away. And then they… started saying things. I don’t know. And they hurt me. I fought them. Broke a few glasses and cut myself. When I woke up my hands were bloody but I didn’t know if it was just my blood or if I had really attacked someone. If they were ever really there in the first place. The police never came so I guess they weren’t. But… I just don’t know.”  
   
Dean had been listening with growing horror. He hadn’t thought it was that bad. It was hardly a surprise that Sam was terrified of having his only means of grounding himself taken away.  
   
Or that he tried to avoid contact with others wherever possible.  
   
“Shit, Sammy,” Dean said, pulling closer again. His mind was already moving. “I’ll find a way to deal with this,” he promised. “You can count on me. Long as I’m around, you’ll be okay,”  
   
It didn’t even occur to him that it wasn’t his place to take care of anything. Fortunately, it didn’t occur to Sam either.

 

 

-

  
   
   
“Are you fucking nuts?” Bob asked that evening, when Dean presented his plan over a beer and a game of cards. “Do I need to remind you again? You don’t even know the kid!”  
   
“I know him better than anyone else on this planet,” Dean protested. “Which in itself is sad enough. Anyway, I can’t just let them make him even more crazy and lock him away forever, drugged mindless.”  
   
“Did it occur to you that maybe they are going to make him better? That medication exactly what he needs?” Bob looked into Dean’s face and shook his head in despair. “It didn’t, did it?”  
   
Dean didn’t say anything, because it really hadn’t. He just didn’t think it would.  
   
For all his issues, Sam seemed smart enough. He’d probably thought of that himself.  
   
“How the Hell do you imagine that’s going to work?” Bob went on. “I mean, seriously – do you remember that a year ago you didn’t even know your own name? Until six months ago you were drunk out of your mind every other day. And now you want to take in a guy with a severe mental illness and think you can handle it? Just – take your work, for example. As I see it, he can’t be left alone, like, ever. Are you going to tie him to your bed while you’re gone? Or are you gonna risk coming home to find he drank to bathroom cleaner while you were at work? Or blew up the kitchen?”  
   
“I’m gonna work it out,” Dean said, unwillingly. “Before everything else I need to help him adjust. I have plenty of vacation days left – nearly a month of them. And a lot of overtime on top of that. I can do a lot in six weeks. And after that… I’ll think about that when the time comes.”  
   
In fact, Dean had never used any of his vacation days. Until now, he just hadn’t known what for.  
   
“I’m beginning to think you never think of anything at all,” Bob growled into his beer.  
   
“That’s why I have a Bobby to tell me what to do,” Dean grinned. “Where would I be without you?”  
   
“Probably right here,” Bob said darkly. “Because you never listen to me. And don’t call me Bobby, I’m not five.”  
   


 

 

-

   
   
   
As expected, Sam’s doctor didn’t like the thought of Dean spiriting his favorite bucket of crazy away. But there was nothing he could do. Dean took full responsibility for his patient and Sam went with Dean willingly – or would go willingly as soon as the hospital let him. And even then it would be less of a going and more of a rolling. Or rather, a being shoved.  
   
They still didn’t know if he would ever walk again but at least they were cautiously optimistic that he’d be able to move around on crutches eventually. For a short time. As long as the ground was flat.  
   
Sam didn’t seem to have an opinion on that. Dean, on the other hand, read the list of medications he would have to make sure Sam took and felt like crying.  
   
Amazingly enough, the kid seemed happy to rely on Dean and trust he would take care of everything. Not that Dean minded. It felt good doing this for him, felt right.  
   
Bob, of course, had something to say about that, too.  
   
It was still another two weeks until Dean could take Sam home. In the meantime, he prepared his house. Build a ramp going up the few steps to the door, moved around furniture so a wheelchair would be able to navigate in there. He moved the cutlery down to lower shelves so Sam would be able to reach it but left the knives out of reach.  
   
Of course, that wouldn’t stop the boy from hurting himself if he really wanted to, but Dean didn’t have to make it easier than it had to be.  
   
While he was making his preparations, Sam came down with another fever and an infection that postponed his release for another few days. Apart from that, he seemed to be doing well. He never flipped out again – at least not while Dean was present. Once he told his new friend, “It’s ironic, but with all these injuries I’m feeling better than ever before. It’s nice to always be sure that what you see is real.”  
   
So Dean knew that it was important for Sam not to feel too well, that he couldn’t take analgesics too strong, that sometimes he had to hurt himself. And he got that Sam trusted he understood that and that he would let him. Dean was determined to do so. But he was also determined not to let it go too far.  
   
He would soon learn that it was all easier said that done.  
   
No one was happy when Dean announced his upcoming one month vacation two weeks in advance. It caused him some trouble, but he got his time off, in the end, starting the day Sam was released from the hospital.  
   
That day he got a bucket full of medications, a long list with doctor’s orders and a sick kid in a wheelchair. The doctors didn’t let Sam go before his fever was gone but he was still pale and weak. He was also smiling, and looking at the world in wonder, as if he hadn’t seen it in years. Dean wished it had been a beautiful spring day, with the sun shining to greet them and birds singing in the sky. In movies it always worked that way. In reality, Sam got out into the open on a miserable, windy day in late summer and Dean had to wait for a break in the sporadic rain showers before he rushed him over to the car.  
   
The first problems started there. Dean’s car wasn’t build to contain a wheelchair. He had considered getting one of those minivans for it but he kind of liked his car and absurdly wanted Sam to like his car, too. Besides, getting another one would have been expensive, and while Dean had some money saved, getting his place redone to meet Sam’s needs had eaten a great part of his fundus. So he figured he’d just help Sam into shotgun and fold the wheelchair up to fit in the backseat.  
   
It was a nice plan, and it didn’t work. Sam’s legs were still fixed in casts and contraptions, which meant one was trapped in a half-bent position, the other already rid of the full-leg cast but still kept mostly immobile and bending it at the knee hurt like a bitch. Not that Sam complained, or even minded, but Dean saw the flinch when he was settled in the wheelchair, and noted the cold sweat on the kid’s forehead. Awesome. So he tried to be careful when he lifted Sam out of the chair, but Sam still fucking whimpered and then Dean couldn’t get him into the front seat because there was no room for his leg, so he had to put him into the backseat, which was still difficult and awkward, and then the chair didn’t fit in the trunk.  
   
In the end Dean had to call Alice, his neighbor, to come and pick up the chair while he got Sam home.  
   
They had to wait in the parking lot for her to show up, and when they got to the house they had to wait again because apparently she managed to hit every fucking red light in the city. Dean kept apologizing because this had to be god-awfully embarrassing, being manhandled like that and then having to sit in the open door of the car with these big awkward casts while people were staring from the other side of the street. When Dean apologized for about the hundredth time, Sam chuckled and told him to stuff it, because Sam was a fucking champ.  
   
Dean could see him slipping, though. He was hardly ever among people and all this unwanted attention and the unfamiliar surroundings were getting to him. Dean very nearly picked him up and just carried him inside, away from prying eyes, but he knew that would hurt, and he already realized that letting Sam hurt himself to stay sane would be harder than he thought. Fortunately, Alice finally showed up and handed over the chair before Dean had to get over to the Millers’ kids and strangle one of them as a warning.  
   
Getting Sam out of the car – who would’ve thought? – was no easier than getting him in. The wheelchair decided to be a bitch and fought a hard battle before taking the shape it was supposed to have, but at least getting it up to the door was no problem because of the ramp Dean had so smartly installed.  
   
Inside the house, things got better. Sam was appropriately impressed with everything Dean had done to make it easier for him to navigate and reach things. “You did all of this for me?” he asked, baffled, actually looking a little guilty. And well, no, that was not the effect this was supposed to have, so Dean nodded but said quickly, “I like building stuff. Carpenting, painting… this place was a mess when I moved in, which was kind of why I chose it. Well, that, and the fact that it was cheap. Anyway, I had fun turning it into someplace nice. You moving here just gave me an excuse to get to work again.”  
   
“You did this yourself?” Now the kid really sounded impressed, and that was much, much better.  
   
Dean gave him a quick tour of the ground level, but could see that now they were home, Sam was fading fast. The day had been stressful and he wasn’t used to being up and about this long. So Dean showed him his room: the backroom past the stairs, small but big enough for a bed and the chair to move around. There was a small closet, too, though Sam had precious little to put into it.  
   
Even the clothes he was wearing now were a gift from Dean. He had lost, literally, everything.  
   
“Sorry the room is so small,” Dean said as he helped Sam out of the chair and placed him on the bed. “All the good rooms are upstairs.”  
   
“It’s okay. I like it.” Sam eyed the window, trying not to be too obvious. Dean knew what he was thinking, though. He remembered the blocked window in Sam’s old place, the constantly shut blinds in his hospital room. Which was why he had put heavy curtains before the single, small window in this room and once he drew the shut, Sam relaxed a little more.  
   
The hardest part of the day was still to follow. It made Dean realize that he might be in over his head after all.  
   
The fact that Sam could do literally nothing on his own would prove harder than Dean had thought. So he had been warned that it would be difficult, but he hadn’t thought it would be this bad. Hell, he’d actually gotten training: the moment the hospital staff accepted that he could not be talked out of taking Sam in, a nurse had come and showed him how to help him get dressed, how to get him to the bathroom and how to get him clean. However, Dean hadn’t been paying all that much attention, too distracted by how very embarrassing this was for Sam and by trying to control himself so he would not lose his temper on the nurse and disqualify himself as a caretaker. Also, the bathroom in the hospital was somewhat larger, and somewhat more adjusted to accommodating wheelchairs.  
   
Even without trying Dean could see that he had underestimated the size of the chair not only in regard to the car. He could get it into the bathroom, alright, but he couldn’t navigate in there. If Dean was in there with Sam, which would be inevitable, he wouldn’t be able to walk around the thing and help his friend, which would render him useless.  
   
And tomorrow a nurse would come to check up on Sam, and if she saw that Dean couldn’t even help him shower, let alone relief himself, she would just pack him up and take him away to some asylum.  
   
“Uhm…” Dean said, feeling awkward. “Would you like to take a shower? Or do you want to wait until after you got some sleep?”  
   
“Later,” Sam said quietly. He didn’t look like he would make it through a shower without falling asleep, especially since Dean had little hope they would manage to get that done in less than an hour. But then Sam looked at Dean and whispered, “I’d like to go use the toilet, though.” And fuck, he was blushing and all embarrassed and no man should be embarrassed by needing to take a piss and fuck, Dean really shouldn’t be embarrassed either.  
   
So he tried not to be. He tried not to stare when he helped Sam out of his super-wide-so-they-go-over-the-cast pants and then tried not to not stare because his not staring had to be pretty obvious. Not that Sam cared – he had closed his eyes and was probably pretending that none of this was actually happening to him. And yeah, Dean could understand that. He just hoped that Sam didn’t walk so far from reality in his mind that he didn’t find the way back. With him, there was no way to tell.  
   
If Sam had gotten lost in his mind, he was definitely pulled back when Dean slipped the pants off his slightly more mobile leg, because he had to move it for that and that hurt. Sam flinched and Dean flinched because he hadn’t meant to hurt him, and yeah, he would definitely have to work on _that_.  
   
So he carried Sam over to the toilet, put him on it, turned to leave to let him have some privacy, then thought better of it in case Sam managed to fall and hurt himself and in the end hovered awkwardly in the doorway. Then he helped Sam over to the sink because he insisted on washing his hands and finally put him back to bed.  
   
Dean just wanted to pull the covers over him but Sam, God damn him, wanted to get into his sweatpants. And damn, that would make things more difficult, because everything he got into he needed to get out of on a regular basis, but he looked so uncomfortable that Dean’s heart melted in an entirely (familiar) alien way and he just gave up and did whatever the kid asked of him.  
   
Afterwards Dean dosed him up on a dozen different kinds of medications. No painkillers upon Sam’s insistence, but antibiotics, stuff against infection, more stuff against infection, stuff against the side-effects of the other stuff and finally a light sedative to help him sleep. Not that that was necessary. Sam was basically out the moment he hit the pillow.  
   


 

  


-

   
   
   
So everyone had told Dean he wasn’t up to this. So Dean hadn’t thought this through entirely. So what?  
   
He just had to think back to Sam telling him how scared he was of what would happen if he was committed to know that he would not give up. Least of all after one day.  
   
Sam slept for about three hours, then he woke with a gasp and tears in his eyes. Dean knew because he’d been sitting in the room – not because he intended to keep up his creepy habit of watching the boy sleep but because he couldn’t see this room from any other point in his house and he needed to know when Sam needed him.  
   
So Sam opened his eyes, looked at him and froze. Dean froze too, suddenly remembering what Sam had told him about his hallucinations: that he’d hallucinated Dean before even meeting him. Cursing himself, he sat very still to give Sam time to adjust. He should have been somewhere out of sight when Sam woke up, to give him time to fully leave the nightmare he had been trapped in.  
   
After some frightened staring, Sam took hold of one of his bandaged wrists and squeezed it. His face twisted in pain and then relaxed.  
   
“Hey, Dean,” he said, a little hoarsely. “Have you been sitting there all the time?”  
“What do you take me for, some creepy stalker? I only just came in,” Dean lied. “How do you feel about that shower now?”  
   
“Actually, a shower sounds good,” Sam admitted. “I feel disgusting.”  
   
It wasn’t surprising. Sam had woken covered in sweat. He was also pale and breathing hard when Dean helped him undress again, sure signs for the pain he was in. But Sam wanted it this way, Dean reminded himself. It was hard, but he made no comment.  
   
After slipping off Sam’s shirt, Dean saw his naked torso for the first time and the sight hit him unexpectedly hard. The burns were ugly and a far cry from having healed completely, there were deep cuts and stitched wounds from the collapsed ceiling, and bruises that still hadn’t faded..  
   
“How do we handle this?” Dean asked to avoid voicing what he really wanted to say. (He didn’t even know what he really wanted to say, but it wasn’t this.) “Can we take off your bandages for the shower or do we put plastic bags over your arms?”  
   
“We can take them off,” Sam said, though if this was a medical fact or his own preference Dean wouldn’t dare question. He just unwrapped the bandages, revealing the burned, scarring skin below. Sam would carry these marks forever.  
   
The casts Dean did wrap in plastic. Lots and lots of plastic for a lot of cast.  
   
At least his guest (house mate, his mind auto-corrected) seemed to have made his peace with the fact that Dean would have to carry his naked self all over the place for the foreseeable future. He only blushed a little and readily wrapped his thin arms around Dean’s neck so he could better lift him.  
   
Sam weighed nothing. Literally nothing. It reminded Dean that he would have to feed him and that that wouldn’t be easy either.  
   
But first things first. First things involved the plastic bench that Dean had installed over the bathtub to make things easier for Sam, and Sam once again being impressed with this thoughtfulness. Dean quite liked that. He hoped Sam would manage to overlook the fact that without Dean around he wouldn’t be able to use the bathroom even when he was strong enough to navigate the wheelchair by himself.  
   
Then he put Sam down on the bench – all six foot four of scarred nakedness, and suddenly it was more important than ever not to stare. Not even to look in passing.  
   
 Dean stood behind Sam to support him. Sam was a warm weight against him, vulnerable and gorgeous and completely pliable and Dean was quite possibly the worst person who ever lived. Ever.

 

 

-

   
   
   
Inevitably, Dean got soaked. Next time he should get naked as well, Sam advised him. Only, that wasn’t going to happen, not with Sam around and Dean having to keep his hips at a distance so the kid wouldn’t notice his erection digging into his back.


	3. Chapter 3

Despite Dean’s concerns, it worked. They developed a routine. Figured out how to move and in what order to do things to meet the least difficulties. Sam learned the layout of the house, and as he got stronger he even managed to move about on his own – slowly at first, and only for a few meters at a time, but with increasing ease. Only for getting from bed to wheelchair and vice versa he needed Dean’s help. And to go to the toilet, but if he had complains about the small bathroom, he never voiced them.  
   
Dean had planned to take him out for trips through the country – Sam had been locked in long enough, he’d decided. But Sam hadn’t looked all that happy about the prospect. He didn’t even like looking out of the window, and in the end Dean let it go. Sam had been right, after all: He wasn’t Dean’s charity project and if he didn’t want to go, Dean couldn’t force him.  
   
Not as long as he didn’t have to slightest idea what the world looked like for Sam.  
   
The nurse that checked on Sam, changed his bandages and made sure he was clean and not starving came every day at first, then every other day, and eventually only twice a week. Dean supposed that meant the hospital was beginning to trust that he wouldn’t kill the boy, though he had to admit they were struggling with the not starving thing. But at least he and Sam were struggling together. Sam tried his best to eat, and while there wasn’t much he would even look at they managed to put together a diet that would keep him alive even after he was no longer fed intravenously.  
   
After a couple of days he even learned how to keep things down. Most of it, anyway.  
   
Getting new supplies was a problem, though, and another thing Dean had failed to really consider beforehand. For himself he could always order take out, but for Sam it had to be fresh rabbit food. Here Neighbor Alice came into play again. She brought some food for them back from her shopping trips, and she even dropped by the hospital to get Sam’s meds. Dean owed her an eternity of lawn moving once Sam was gone again.  
   
Considering what an enormous inconvenience having Sam in his life meant, it was amazing how much Dean didn’t want to think about him being gone.  
   
He also didn’t want to think about what Sam would do once he was alone again. The idea of him alone in some shut room, closed off from the world and struggling with his own mind was fundamentally depressing. For all the things Dean was doing wrong, he liked to imagine that Sam was better off by far when he was with him.  
   
But Sam kept mentioning the things Dean might do when he was gone, and Dean didn’t know if this was Sam not wanting to be a bother of if it was Sam genuinely wanting to leave.  
   
Perhaps it was Sam realizing that Dean got a hard on every time he saw him naked, in which case Dean couldn’t even blame him.  
   
So far it seemed to have escaped Sam’s notice, though – and he didn’t seem to think anything about the fact that Dean generally took a shower right after him either.  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
Things got a little bit easier when Sam started with his physical therapy. Dean took him to the hospital first once in four days, then once in three, and got to go shopping while some guy he didn’t know worked on getting Sam’s body back in working order. Once again Alice came in handy because she let him take the van she never used anyway which had enough room for the wheelchair. The hour in which Dean did not have to watch over someone who couldn’t leave the house offered him a chance to do everything that couldn’t be done from home and he thought it was quite a relief until he picked Sam up after the first session and noticed how distraught he looked. There were tears in his eyes and Dean was ready to storm in there and kill someone. Sam, however, seemed to sense his mood and guess his thoughts. He put a hand on Dean’s arm and said, “It just hurt a lot.”  
   
And yeah, it probably did, But Sam never had a problem with pain before. It made him cry on times, but it never made him look so vulnerable.  
   
It made sense, though. Sam wasn’t happy around people, he didn’t like the attention of strangers, and a long hour with someone he didn’t know focused only on him was probably hard to bear. The pain might have been the only thing that kept him from losing it.  
   
Dean hoped it would get better with time, once Sam got used to it. Maybe it did. Maybe Sam just got better at hiding his distress.  
   
His casts came off during the second week he spent with Dean, but he was still wearing braches. A half- leg brace on the bad leg and a full-leg brace on the really bad leg, one of those things that made him look like he had a robotic limb, which Dean had to admit looked pretty cool. Getting it on and off was less cool, especially since it hurt Sam every time. A lot. And yeah, so he wanted it that way, but Dean couldn’t ignore the way all color left his face when Dean fiddled with his leg, how he broke into sweat and his harsh, ragged breathing. Dean didn’t know how much longer he could stand this, loved the kid too fucking much to stand hurting him like that.  
   
This was something he very determinedly did not think about.  
   
The smaller cast on Sam’s other leg needed a few days longer to come off. The leg had been broken in two places: a clean break in his thigh that had been fixed with nails and a shattered ankle that would approximately never heal. Not completely. Just like the other leg as a whole.  
   
Sometimes Dean wondered if he could have spared him this if he had been a little faster the day of the fire. It was a sure sign that he needed to meet with Bob again, because Bob usually set his head right if he was thinking like that.  
   
While Sam was more than okay with the pain, Dean could see that his general helplessness was wearing on him. He felt useless and a bother. Not that he ever said anything but Dean could tell from the way he turned quieter the more time passed, and from the simple fact that more than once he nearly pissed himself because he waited until it was almost too late with letting Dean know that he would like to use the bathroom, like, now, thank you very much.  
   
“I’m not even good company,” Dean heard him mutter once and just wanted to hug him. (He didn’t.)  
   
He did his best to keep Sam entertained – and found that his housemate didn’t even know the most popular tv shows. They actually had a good time sitting in front of the screen, watching movies late into the night, and the fact that Sam had no memories older than a year and used to live without a tv gave Dean a convenient excuse to re-watch some of his favorite movies. Especially the westerns. And bad horror movies.  
   
“This is bullshit, of course,” Dean said one night after the vampire had just been staked. “Vampires need to be beheaded to stay dead.” Wherever that came from, because in the movie, the staking worked just fine. But Sam nodded, as if what Dean had said made perfect sense.  
   
Most days Sam watched sitting in his wheelchair, which he claimed was comfortable enough. Sometimes, though, Dean could talk him into letting himself be moved to the couch and more than once he would fall asleep there, his head sinking onto Dean’s shoulder. He never seemed to have any nightmares when that happened.  
   
It gave Dean the idea of sharing the bed with Sam, since being held seemed to help him. But given the fact that they were, in the end, virtual strangers, as well as his secret and more than inappropriate attraction to the boy, he never proposed it.  
   
He could well imagine how that would go.  
   
Sam began moving around more. His rips healed and he gained enough strength to move the wheelchair on his own, though it exhausted him and often he would get stuck and need several attempts to go around corners. Dean could tell it frustrated him, but he knew better that to step in and help.  
   
In an obvious attempt to earn his stay, he took up cooking when Dean wasn’t looking, and cleaning wherever he could reach. He even went so far as to make a steak for Dean though he once admitted that the smell of roasted meat made him sick. He was very pale when Dean caught him and looked quite relieved when his host grabbed the handles of the chair and pushed him outside in some sort of angry concern.  
   
“What the heck are you doing?” Dean had been upstairs, taking a nap when he felt he must be oppressing Sam with this presence. And Sam’s doctor would have told him that was stupid, that he couldn’t leave someone with a mind as fragile as Sam’s unobserved, but that doctor was an idiot who had no idea. Hadn’t seen how well Sam was doing. No panic attacks, no checking out, so maybe all he had needed was to get away from the damn hospital and all the people telling him he was crazy. Maybe he just needed someone to fucking be there for him and give a fuck.  
   
Maybe he needed to have his head set right. “You think I want you to fucking work for me, moron? That I’m kicking you out if you don’t? What kind of person do you take me for?”  
   
“I take you for someone who went through a lot of trouble to take in someone he didn’t even know and is getting nothing out of it but more trouble,” Sam said unhappily. “And I know you don’t want anything in return, but I don’t get why.”  
   
“I happen to like you, and I don’t want you to go through this alone,” Dean just said, since he didn’t have a good answer for that question. Not even to himself. Okay, so he was kind of attracted to this boy – well, man, really – but he had been attracted to other people before without reshaping his entire life for them. Even if he was infatuated with Sam, that wouldn’t explain it.  
   
“So this is some kind of pity trip, then?” Sam sounded bitter, as if he had expected something else – or he had expected just that but didn’t want to have it confirmed.  
   
Dean shook his head. “Hell, no! I don’t pity you, dumbass. If anything, I admire you.”  
   
“Admire.” Sam said the word like it tasted badly. “Now you’re making fun of me.”  
   
“I’m not. Really, you gotta believe me.” Dean had never thought about this, but he found he meant every word he said. “Life has dealt you a shitty deck, there’s no denying it. And yet, you manage. Somehow.”  
   
“Manage?” Now there was something hysterical creeping into Sam’s voice. “ _Manage_? I’ve locked myself into an apartment for the better part of a year! I was scared of my neighbors, my physical therapist frightens me and my doctor wants to have me committed. Not to mention that I lost my memory and never even tried to get it back. Does that sound like I’m managing?”  
   
“It sounds like you’re doing the best you can. Not everyone would do that. But you’re here. You made it this far, and you keep going. You found a way to tell what’s real, and God knows I hate it, but it works. You’re fun to be around once you manage to relax, you sit through all the awful movies I throw at you and you made me a fucking steak because you’re a fucking moron.”  
   
Sam stared at him, opened his mouth and closed it again. “That doesn’t even make sense,” he finally mumbled.  
   
“No, it doesn’t,” Dean agreed and leaned in to kiss him.  
   
Sam’s lips were soft beneath his, slightly parted, just waiting to be claimed. Dean kissed him gently and almost chastely and Sam didn’t react, didn’t react at all for what felt like a minute. Then his lips moved, but to kiss him back or to protest Dean would never know since that was the moment when his brain started working again and he pulled back with a gasp, shocked about himself.  
   
“I’m sorry,” he hurried to say. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I… I shouldn’t have done that.”  
   
“Then why did you?” Sam whispered, just as shocked as Dean, and Dean thought about how this had to look to him. Dean, taking in this stranger who did not know what he got out if it. And then kissing him, right in a discussion about Sam doing something in return. If Dean ever had done something stupid, this was it.  
   
“I just want to help you.” It was, perhaps, the most honest thing Dean had ever said. But what did it matter when he said it in such a phenomenally bad moment? “I can’t even tell you why. I just want to see you get better. I fucking _care_!”  
   
“But why?”  
   
“”Sometimes people just do,”  
   
Sam shook his head, looking at Dean with tears in his eyes. The poor kid looked so lost, it broke Dean’s heart.  
   
He’d done this.  
   
“You’re wasting your time,” Sam whispered.  
   
“No. I mean.” Dean ran a hand through his hair, wondering how he could possibly fix this. “I know you don’t… You just came here because you had no other choice, I get that. And I’m not expecting anything from you and I really, really shouldn’t have kissed you. Don’t even think you’re that attractive, bitch.” His attempt on humor was the wrong way to go, he realized when Sam flinched. Great. “Well, the offer is still standing. You can stay until you’ve gotten better. I _want_ you to stay, but if you want to leave, I understand.”  
   
Dean really, really didn’t want him to leave.  
   
“I’m not getting better,” Sam whispered. “That’s where your time is wasted.”  
   
“Bullshit. You’ve done so well since coming here.”  
   
“It’s so much worse than you think.”  
   
“That what it seems like right now, but think back to how things were when you were in the hospital. They had you tied to the fucking bed every other day. And now you’re happily rolling around bitching about my choice of tv shows because you don’t appreciate art.”  
   
“Dr. Sexy isn’t art,” Sam muttered, with the barest hint of a smile on his face. It wasn’t an honest one, but it was an offer Dean was all too willing to take.  
   
“Sure is. You just don’t appreciate it.”  
   
Sam smiled a little stronger now, but it looked pained. “There is a man standing behind you, He’s just slit your throat and I keep wondering how you can talk with so much blood gushing out of you.”  
   
Well. There was a mood killer right there.  
   
Dean instinctively raised his hand to this throat and looked around but of course there was no one there. Before him, Sam was digging his fingers into his arm and looked like he was about to cry.  
   
“It’s gonna be okay, Sammy.” Dean took hold of his hand and gently removed it from his arms. “It’ll get better, okay? Everything will be fine.”  
   
Sam sobbed. Once. Then he wiped his face, pulled himself together and said, “I nearly puked making you a steak, so you’d better go eat it or I’ll get really pissed.”  
   
Dean didn’t feel like eating, but he knew this was an offer he had to take. “If you let me fix you something afterwards,” he bribed. “I promise it won’t be roofied.” He had to make fun of his mistake so Sam wouldn’t take it too seriously and run.  
   
Sam rolled his eyes. He grabbed Dean’s shirt, pulled him down and pressed a kiss to his lips that took Dean entirely by surprise and kept him from reacting in any way.  
   
“Now we’re even,” Sam said when he let go. “Stop worrying about it. And go eat your dinner, jerk.”  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
One day, Sam told Dean that he was on order to join him for one of his physical therapy sessions because there were certain exercises Sam was supposed to do at home and he needed help for that. So Dean came along, quite ready to meet the guy who almost made Sammy cry the first few days and found him to be a rather nice middle-aged woman who was stern but never unfriendly and explained everything in great detail.  
   
For all her kindness, Dean could tell that her exercises took a lot out of Sam, even though almost everything happened with him sitting down. Dean had expected Sam to learn walking again here, but the therapist, Ellie, explained to him that Sam’s legs weren’t up for that yet. They also weren’t the only thing they were working on.  
   
What amazed Dean was how calm Sam was through everything. He even smiled at her and joked around in that subdued way of his. Ellie told Dean that Sam had been nothing but friendly and determined since the beginning. “He never complains,” she said after the session. “I know it’s hard, and it’s painful, but he just takes it. I think he really wants out of that chair as soon as possible.”  
   
Dean wasn’t convinced of that motivation. He knew Sam was frustrated with his own limitations sometimes, but so far he had never struggled with his fate. At least not where Dean could see it.  
   
What bothered him more was the shadow that fell over Ellie’s face when she spoke the words.  
   
“What’s the prospect on that?” he asked.  
   
“It’s impossible to tell at this point,” she said regretfully. “But he will never walk normally again. And for long distances he’ll always need the chair.”  
   
Dean closed his eyes. “That’s for sure?”  
   
“Yes. You didn’t know?”  
   
“No.”  
   
She send him a sympathetic look and left to greet her next patient. Dean waited in the hall until Sam came rolling out of the dressing room. He still needed help with getting changed but there were nurses here for that.  
   
“What’s wrong?” he asked on the drive back, obviously picking up on Dean’s mood.  
   
“Dean glared at him. “So, you’ll never get rid of that chair, huh?”  
   
Sam’s shoulders slumped. “Oh. That.”  
   
“That. When did you plan on telling me that? I have been waiting for news on that for weeks. I was about to call your doc and tear him a new one for needing so damn long for making a simple diagnosis.”  
   
“For one, it’s not that simple. I might have another surgery or two that can still fix things some.”  
   
“Ellie said that you never again walking like before is a given.”  
   
“Well. But it’s not your problem.”  
   
Dean glared at the road, his hands tight around the wheel.  
   
“Dean,” Sam put a hand to his arm, for perhaps the first time ever initiating contact. “It’ really isn’t your problem. You have no obligations to me. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”  
   
“So what – you plan on going through that on your own?”  
   
“No. I was planning on rolling through it on my own.”  
   
And there they said only Dean had a knack for using humor in all the wrong moments. “Not goddamn funny.”  
   
“I can’t impost that on you. You’ve done enough. I’m getting stronger and as soon as I can change my pants on my own, I’ll be gone.”  
   
“Because you want to leave? Or because you think you should?”  
   
“What does it matter?”  
   
“What if I don’t want you to go?”  
   
There, he said it. And maybe that was a mistake but Sam said the kiss didn’t matter so Dean was going to take him up on that and just says it as it was.  
   
Sam looked at him with an unreadable expression. Dean should probably park the car before he drove them into something, but he’d always been better at having conversations like this on the road. (Or so he felt. Not that he knew for sure.)  
   
“This is your life, Dean. Don’t you want it back? You think I haven’t noticed that you’ve been limited to me for almost a month now? No work, no friends coming over, not even your family calling. You need to take better care of yourself.”  
   
“I don’t have family. My friends aren’t that close. And work was something I threw myself into because I didn’t have anything else. You asked what I’m getting out of this. Well, this is it. Company. Someone I care about. Something to fill my fucking life. Do _you_ think just because I can walk and don’t hallucinate my life is perfect? It’s just imperfect in a more boring way.”  
   
Sam didn’t say anything in return. He just withdrew his hand and was silent for the rest of the way home. Just great. What the heck was Dean supposed to do with _that_?  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
At some point Sam had removed the bandages around his burned arms for his shower and told Dean not to put on new ones. Whether he no longer needed them or just was fed up with the hassle Dean couldn’t tell but he let that one go without a fight as long as Sam allowed him to apply his salve to the burns regularly. The bandages were a pain anyway; always getting dirty or wet.  
   
Though he remained painfully thin, Sam build up some muscle in his arms and learned to do a lot of things by himself. Dean’s toilet remained an obstacle he couldn’t overcome due to the lack of space, but the one at the hospital he managed on his own by the time Dean’s vacation was almost over. Just getting dressed was still a problem. His legs were stiff, not yet healed and further hindered by the stabilizing braches. And Sam did not yet have enough mobility in the rest of his body to put on pants, or socks, or shoes.  
   
Or so Dean thought. One morning he came into Sam’s room and found him sitting in his wheelchair fully dressed. He was pale and covered in sweat but also sort of glowing, like a damn kid hitting the target at the shooting rage full on for the first time. Dean felt like someone had pulled out the ground beneath his feet.  
   
The nurse came once a week now, and she didn’t stay long anymore. Dean and Sam got it. And Sam’s doctor during his regular check ups was quite impressed as well, though Dean could never tell if that was because of Sam’s progress, because Dean had somehow managed not to kill him yet or because Sam wasn’t a screaming and thrashing bucket of crazy. Either way, he was talking about another surgery next month, one that should hopefully give Sam back some more use of his legs.  
   
Sam would be in hospital for at least a week for that. And afterwards…  
   
Afterwards, Dean didn’t know if he was coming back. And the thought that he might not scared him to death.  
   
Maybe he should get a roommate, he sometimes thought. Get out more. This clinginess, it couldn’t be normal.  
   
But he didn’t want anyone. He wanted Sam. Sam who showered himself now that he was strong enough and Dean’s erection had accidentally brushed against him more than once. Sam who was doing his best to need him less and less. Sam who was already leaving him.  
   
He sounded like a girl even in his own mind. This wasn’t his wife walking out. This was just Sam, getting out of his life. (And he’d thought they were over that.)  
   
Sam was getting quieter and quieter the better his health became. Now he knew that Dean needed him too, he probably had a hard time figuring out how to break the news to him. Well, good. If he was going to leave Dean behind, at least he should suffer a little for it.  
   
He felt ashamed as soon as he thought it, but he thought it anyway. Then he felt even worse about himself.  
   
After his month was over, Dean got back to work. He only worked half a day at first. For weeks he had been able to forget and ignore what Sam told him about things being worse with him than Dean knew, but suddenly it was all he could think about. For one month, Dean had hardly ever been far from Sam, and if he was, Sam was at the hospital, surrounded by people who knew him and his troubles. Now he was alone. What if he had an episode and did something stupid? Dean thought about calling Alice but Sam hardly knew her, preferring to keep out of sight whenever she came over to deliver their groceries, and Dean, in turn, had never invited her into the house.  
   
So he got home after just a couple of hours, much to the relief of his co-workers who had missed him for a month only to get him back cranky and distracted. Jim told him to stop being an ass and Dean did so by going home and checking if Sam was alive.  
   
Sam was lying curled up on his bed. He jumped when Dean came in, stared at him for a long moment before deciding he was real. Dean wondered if he had ever not been since Sam moved in here.  
   
He held his right hand up towards Dean’s face in greeting. “What do you see?” he whispered.  
   
The question didn’t even make sense. “Your hand?” Dean tried, confused.  
   
“Oh. Good.” Some of the tension left Sam’s body and he withdrew his hand and closed his eyes. Almost a minute passed before he opened them again. “You’re back early.”  
   
“The others kicked me out. Apparently I’m an ass.”  
   
“You are.” But Sam smiles and Dean was willing to take a few insults for that.  
   
“How are you doing?”  
   
“Good. I tried to make dinner. But I couldn’t. Then I slept until now.”  
   
Dean tried to follow that. It was obviously a lie – Sam looked dead tired, and not in the way someone did who had just woken up. “We’ll order take-out.”  
   
So they did. They spent the rest of the day huddled on the couch, with Sam pressed against Dean as if the thought of being separated from him again scared him, and Dean thought, _‘How do you ever hope to go on without me?’_  
   
But the next day, Sam insisted on Dean leaving again. They got into a fight over it with Dean only giving in when Sam threatened to call a taxi and move into a hotel right now if Dean didn’t go to work. By then, Dean knew him well enough – Sam was stubborn even more than he was fragile. He would do it.  
   
So he accepted a compromise with himself and decided to work a half-day again. Sam had his number. If it got bad, he was to call him. Dean made him promise and threatened to quit his job and lock Sam in so he couldn’t leave if he didn’t call and Dean came home to find him crumbling again.  
   
“Don’t you think you should accept his words when he says he’s fine?” Bob said when Dean called him from the station that day. They hadn’t talked in two weeks and not seen each other since Sam had moved in. “Give him some space. It’s no surprise he wants to leave if you keep smothering him like that.”  
   
“Can’t trust him,” Dean growled, full of frustrated worry. “Little bitch keeps lying to me.”  
   
But he came home and Sam was fine. Sam had coffee ready and was in the process of nibbling his way through a fruit salad while watching a re-run of The Good Wife on tv.  
   
Dean made a show of pulling a face at it. “Seriously, Sam?”  
   
Sam rolled his eyes. “You watch Dr. Sexy.”  
   
“Dr. Sexy is art.”  
   
“No, Dean. The Mona Lisa is art. Dr. Sexy is embarrassing.”  
   
It felt so natural, so good to act this way with Sam that all the tension that had driven Dean home early fell away and was replaced by the best mood he had in ages. He got a cup of coffee and got Sam from the wheelchair to the couch. Sam could do that himself now, but usually he didn’t bother. This time he had no choice. Dean pulled him close and teased him about his choice of shows and told himself that his hard on sprang from his thoughts of banging the show’s hot investigator.  
   
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
Dean went to work normally again after that, relying on Sam to tell him If he needed anything. When his cell rang on Thursday, Dean was ready to ignore the call about a flooded basement they just received and rush home, but all Sam wanted was for Dean to bring pick up a pack of razor blades on the way home.  
   
He was fine. He barely even twitched anymore and hardly looked into the corners or behind him in search of something Dean couldn’t ever hope to see or understand. He did, however, develop a low-grade fever that had the hospital postpone his surgery for another week.  
   
“I walked today,” he said on Monday when Dean picked him up from physical therapy. He was almost beaming, even though he was still covered in sweat and looking like he might drop dead in a second. “All of two steps. Ellie wouldn’t let me go any further, but I could have.”  
   
“I don’t doubt it.” Dean pressed a kiss to Sam’s forehead and neither of them thought anything of it.  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
On Friday, Dean realized that something was wrong with Sam.  
   
There was the fever. It wasn’t bad and Sam didn’t let him stay home because of it, but it wouldn’t go away. There was Sam’s good mood that bordered on giddiness one times and seemed a little odd after weeks of nightmares and nervous breaks every other day. At first Dean put it down to Sam making progress in general and feeling safe in their house, but it came too sudden to feel natural. And then there was the fact that Sam didn’t need his help to shower anymore.  
   
That shouldn’t seem weird. After all, Sam had been completely dependent on him for so long it was hardly surprising that he relished in any independence he could get, even if he had to climb into the bathtub with the wheelchair basically standing in the corridor. But it was still very hard for him and took ages, and Dean was willing to help. So far Sam had never minded, even after had Dean kissed him. So it seemed suspicions – if only because Dean was a paranoid bastard. (He’d learned from the best.)  
   
So two days before his weekend off he said, “You’ve been awfully cheerful lately.”  
   
Sam pulled a face. “You’re never satisfied, are you?”  
   
“You’ve also been going through razor blades awfully fast.”  
   
Now Sam blanched and Dean’s insides clenched. Jackpot.  
   
“I’m a hairy guy,” Sam said lamely.  
   
“No, you’re not. You were unconscious for days and barely developed stubble.”  
   
“So what are you implying here?”  
   
“Take off your shirt.”  
   
Of course, Sam didn’t. He took hold of his wheels and moved to turn on the spot. Damn, he’d gotten good at that. But Dean would be damned if he let him get away like that. He just grabbed the chair and held it back, and then he lifted Sam out of it and carried him through the door into his own bedroom. Dumped him onto the bed while Sam was struggling and telling him to let him the Hell go.  
   
“Stop it! You’re hurting yourself,” Dean snapped.  
   
“You’re hurting me!” Sam snapped back. “Don’t touch me. Go the fuck away!”  
   
Dean didn’t listen. Sam had given up the right to be listened to when he decided to lie to Dean. (He’d known this would happen, he’d fucking _known_ it!) Instead, Dean tore at his clothes, already dreading what he would find below.  
   
“No!” Sam screamed. He sounded panicked. Had he really thought Dean wouldn’t find out? That he would be surprised by what he’d find?  
   
Sam kicked Dean. It took him by surprise, so much he stumbled backwards even thought there was hardly any strength in it and probably hurt Sam worse than it hurt Dean. But he no longer struggled just to get away, he fought to hurt, consciously attacking Dean. And that went too far. Dean only wanted to help. “You little bitch,” he growled, throwing himself back at Sam and holding him down. “Hold still!”  
   
“No!” Sam screamed again. “No, please don’t! Please, Lucifer, let me go! Not like this, not him!”  
   
The words pushed Dean back more effectively than the kick had done. But Sam kept struggling even after Dean had let him go. His back arched and his legs kicked at nothing.  
   
It took Dean far too long to realize he was seizing.


	4. Chapter 4

Sam lost consciousness after his seizure. Dean was lost as to what to do. He should call the hospital, he knew, but they would take Sam away and not give him back. After what had happened, Sam wouldn’t want to come back. Dean had to talk to him. Had to explain that he never meant to hurt Sam, but he also needed an explanation or two himself.  
   
Sam was breathing fine, so Dean assumed he would be okay. He’d wake up. No doctors needed.  
   
So he did what Sam did not want him to do, because there was a reason for that and Dean was going to find out and fix this, somehow.  
   
He would not think about Sam’s panic and what he’s said. There was a later time for that; a time when Dean did not feel like thinking about it might kill him.  
   
Dean was very careful when he unzipped Sam’s hoodie and slipped it off him. Sam was wearing a t-shirt beneath it, but Dean didn’t need to bother with that as well. He found what he was looking for beneath a bandage around Sam’s left arm – a bandage that had not been there before and had nothing at all to do with Sam’s burns.  
   
What he found beneath were a couple f cuts – some shallow, some so deep they had been stitched closed with the fishing thread from Dean’s storage room. That alone had to hurt like hell, and Dean was left to wonder where Sam had learned how to make stitches that neat while bleeding.  
   
There was one cut on the underside of Sam’s arm, exactly in the middle between wrist and elbow, that showed clear signs of infection. It looked strange to Dean; very neat, but the stitches were bulging somehow, as if something was trying to break out from beneath. Dean inspected in more closely, and then he got a pair of small nail scissors from the bathroom, sliced them open and used a pair of pliers to pullout the broken razorblade that was embedded deep in Sam’s muscle. He emptied half a bottle of vodka over the badly bleeding mess, sewed it up again with more thread and wrapped it up tightly with a bandage. Then he went outside, onto the porch, and took deep breaths until he didn’t feel like throwing up again.  
   
Sam had to have done that while Dean was at work. He must have done it in the bathroom – probably the shower, where he could easily clean away the blood. Sam was methodical like that. He had to have done it because he didn’t want Dean to worry all the time and stay home just for him. He didn’t want Dean to know how badly he was doing without him. Dean got that. He understood. It made him fucking angry.  
   
When he felt he could breathe again he went back inside and sat beside Sam until he woke up.  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
Sam wasn’t, altogether, unconscious for more than half an hour. He woke briefly after Dean returned, and he woke whimpering. Dean was pissed, but he was also aching for him, so he held his hand when he said darkly, “I performed a little surgery while you were out. Must have hurt like a bitch – I bet you’re sorry you missed that.”  
   
Sam’s long fingers wrapped around the new bandage, but whether to check what Dean had done or because of the residual pain Dean couldn’t tell. “You promised you would let me. You said you understood.” And damn, he sounded like a five-years-old there. Like a betrayed five-years-old.  
   
“My understanding stops at self-mutilation, kiddo.” He squeezed Sam’s hand a little before letting it go. “If it was that bad you should have told me. I would have stayed here.”  
   
“Didn’t want you to. You’ve done too much for me already. And…”  
   
“And what?” Dean asked when Sam didn’t continue.  
   
“It’s not just you. You being here helps…” He bit his lips as if regretting having said that, but he had and Dean fucking knew it! “But it’s been getting worse for a while now. I see… It’s harder to tell what’s real. Sometimes I think you’re here when you’re not.”  
   
The thought of what Sam might have been seeing, what the Dean in his head might have done turned Dean’s stomach. Maybe there were awful things Sam didn’t even know hadn’t really happened. “But your injuries still have to hurt. You fucking whimper whenever you bend your knee!”  
   
Sam shrugged. “I guess I just got used to that.”  
   
“God damn it, Sam! This can’t go on!” Dean exploded. “You’re going to fucking kill yourself.”  
   
“Perhaps that’s not the worst thing that could happen to us,” Sam whispered. And damn, he’d said ‘us’, so obviously he thought Sam killing himself would work awesomely with Dean’s plans for his future.  
   
Dean didn’t know what to say. He had no idea what words could make Sam understand what that would do to Dean, so he kissed him instead. And this time he didn’t hold back. He put all his anger and love and half-buried desire into it, crushed their mouths together and didn’t leave Sam room to breathe.  
   
Sam was still for a moment. Then he wrapped his arms around Dean, pulled him even closer and parted his lips as he kissed back with all he had.  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
There was still blood on the sheets. Sam’s blood. There was the pair of scissors which Dean pushed off so it couldn’t hurt them and the old, dirty gauze which he left there, beneath Sam’s back, as he pushed him down. There was a bottle of disinfectant on the bedside table and a roll of thread on the floor. All this should have pulled Dean back to reality, should have told him that this wasn’t okay, that Sam needed help and not this; that he had fucked up and was fucking up even more, right here, right now. It shouldn’t have turned him on.  
   
It shouldn’t have felt right. But it did. This, them, among the smell of disinfectant and blood, rolling on dirty bandages, Dean’s hands running over scars and stitches. This felt right, like they belonged here, and Sam never once told him to stop but clung to him as if Dean could save him. He let Dean push him down, let him pin his hands down on either side of his head (Dean’s weight resting on his newly closed wound and Sam hissed and arched into him, like this, just like this). He let Dean lie on him, skin on naked skin and Dean didn’t even know what happened to their shirts, when they had pulled them off, and he didn’t know why this never happened in the shower, both of them naked and close and relaxed but here, among blood and pain and tension.  
   
“Dean,” Sam gasped when he could breathe, like a plea for salvation and Dean growled in response, just growled.  
   
He let go of Sam’s arms and moved his hands down his body, over protruding ribs (wrong!) and the scars left by his burns. Until he found Sam’s sweat pants, and he pressed his face against the bulge there and nuzzled it and blew and Sam jerked and made a noise that was something between a plea and a cry so Dean did it again.  
   
Sam was squirming when Dean palmed him while licking a trail up his belly. He squirmed but made no sound, and when Dean looked up he saw that he was biting his arm – not putting it in his mouth to keep quiet but really biting down, to cause pain. There was some blood – not much, but it was there, smeared over Sam’s lips and the corner of his mouth and it send something hot down Dean’s belly, made him even harder even as it made him angry because this was wrong and had to stop.  
   
So he growled again and said “Stop.” Pulled Sam’s arm away from his face, roughly because Sam needed that, needed it to hurt. He sat on the other man so his knees pinned down Sam’s arms and fished for Sam’s shirt, the one he ruined when he pulled the razor blade out of his arm, and tore it to shreds. (He’d never done that before but it felt so familiar he found himself grinning, or maybe just baring his teeth.)  Then he pressed Sam’s arm against the bedpost and wrapped a stripe around his wrist and the wood so he was trapped. Repeated it with the other arm and Sam let it happen, didn’t even watch what Dean was doing, just watched Dean.  
   
When he was done he kissed Sam again – shoved his tongue deep into the other’s mouth and let their teeth clash, and when he pulled back he caught Sam’s lower lip between his teeth and bit down hard enough to hurt. Sam needed it to hurt to be grounded in reality, but Dean wouldn’t let him hurt himself. Sam didn’t know when to stop, so he had to learn to trust Dean with this. Trust that he would do what he had to, that he wouldn’t be too gentle, too much in love to do what must be done.  
   
But he was. He didn’t want to hurt Sam, couldn’t, but he had to and it made him angry, and he let that anger guide him, let it lead his hands and his mouth, let him grab Sam rougher, bite down harder.  
   
His nails scrapped over Sam’s skin when he pulled off his pants, and hell, his legs, his skinny, mangled legs, it had to fucking hurt. But Sam moaned deeply and opened his thighs for Dean, so all thoughts Dean might have been having about it rushed south and disappeared.  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
Sam strained against the bonds, and that _had_ to hurt, with all the damaged skin on his arms and hands it had to hurt. Dean bit down hard to remind him that this was his job, catching the soft flash of Sam’s buttocks between his teeth and Sam was still; panting but still, and then moaning when Dean moved just that little bit and teased Sam’s opening with the tip of his tongue. Dean licked, and Sam arched, and then Dean blew and licked again and tried to go a little further, and Sam nearly screamed.  
   
Dean was pretty sure that he had never done anything like this before. Not even as a hallucination.  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
It wasn’t Dean’s first time with a man (not entirely) but it appeared to be Sam’s. For all Dean could tell he had never been taken before, not in any time that he or his body remembered, and as long as Sam didn’t beg and name him the Devil again that would be enough for him.  
   
He was open beneath him, so open and willing and saying “Dean, Dean, Dean,” and “Please” with every breath, every pant and moan, and Dean was only panting and moaning, rocking in and out, in and out and hard and fast because it had to be rough, it had to be and he couldn’t slow down now if he wanted to, couldn’t do anything but go on and on and on and his mouth had forgotten how to speak, but in his mind he was chanting _Sam, Sam, Sam, Sammy_ , and _Yes, God, finally_ , and _Mine_.  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
Afterwards he freed Sam’s arms and kissed his tender wrists over and over again. Sam just sighed and rested his head on Dean’s chest, and in the end Dean pulled the blanket over both of them and they fell asleep like that: sweaty, sticky and together, Sam nestled safely in Dean’s arms.  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
“You need to understand,” Dean said the moment Sam stirred against him, “that I didn’t plan this. Really. You gotta believe me, this isn’t why I offered to take you in.”  
   
Sam blinked at him. “Good morning to you, too.”  
   
“Seriously, Sam. I need to clear that up.”  
   
Sam moved away a little and made a face. He seemed more concerned with the fact that they were disgusting than anything else. “How long have you been lying awake, waiting for me to wake up so you can tell me?”  
   
About an hour. “I just don’t want there to be any misunderstandings between us. I know how this must look.”  
   
“I never worried about that. If you hadn’t started with this, I never even would have thought about it.”  
   
“Why not?”  
   
“Because I know you. You’re not that kind of guy.”  
   
“You don’t know me that well.”  
   
Sam shrugged. “Yes, I think I do. Or are you that kind of guy?”  
   
“Of course not!”  
   
“So what, then?” Sam rolled away and Dean saw him flinch when the movement hurt something in his body or maybe everything. He didn’t comment on it. “I’m gonna take a shower.”  
   
“Good luck with that,” Dean grumbled. Sam’s wheelchair was, after all, in another room and walking, even three steps, was still a big no-go. But Sam just pulled a face at him, so Dean didn’t have any other choice but give in and pick him up like a child. Sam was taller than him, so this was always a little awkward, but Dean was strong and Sam was thin and in this case Dean’s naked body was very interested in feeling Sam’s naked body against it.  
   
“You’re doing well today,” he observed. “I don’t know. I was worried. Yesterday…”  
   
“Yesterday wasn’t a good day,” Sam admitted. “But I woke up and knew what was real. I’ve never felt this certain for as long as I can remember. Being with you… I guess it grounded me. Nothing like that ever happened in my mind. Not like that…” His voice trailed off at the final words and Dean held him a little closer as if he could protect him from something that was long ago and had maybe never happened. But then Sam squirmed and said, “You know, you could just have gotten the wheelchair for me.”  
   
“Less romantic that way.” They reached the bathroom and Dean placed Sam on the bench above the bathtub and ran the water, waiting for it to get warm. Now, in the bright light of the lamp overhead Sam was a skinny collection of scars and bruises and Dean felt a new wave of shame run over him that made him place the shower in Sam’s hand and step back.  
   
“Are you planning on staying dirty all day?” Sam called after him when he left and maybe he really wanted Dean to stay. Maybe he just wanted him to feel better. Dean was willing to take what he could get.  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
After they were both clean again, Dean carried Sam over to his own room, went back and fetched his wheelchair and then went to get his clothes. Stepping into his bedroom he was hit by the smell of sex and once again by the reality of what he had done. The sheets were soiled with dried blood and now, in the light of day, Dean could hardly stand the sight. He tore them off, but the bedding beneath was ruined as well. In the end he stuffed everything into the washing machine, added far too much powder and turned it on, unwilling to look at the mess any longer. He threw out the bandage and Sam’s ruined shirt, slipped into the first pair of pants he could find and went back to see if Sam needed any help.  
   
He did. Apparently, Sam ached all over, and while he did not mind that, it made it hard for him to move. He had managed to half get into the pajama pants Dean had handed him and was now lying flat on his bed with tears in his eyes, breathing hard.  
   
So Dean helped him with that. Pulled the pants all the way up, but when he was done his hands remained on Sam’s thighs, feeling the skin and bone and muscle under his palms.  
   
“Was that really okay with you?” he asked quietly.  
   
“Yes, Dean, it was okay. It was good. And I don’t believe you will kick me out now you’ve got into my pants. I just…”  
   
Dean closed his eyes. “Just?”  
   
“I still don’t understand why you invited me in the first place. If it had been this, at least I’d know. But I don’t. And it makes no sense. And then I wonder…”  
   
He wondered if any of this was real at all. Dean didn’t need him to say it to understand. It suddenly made so much sense.  
   
And Dean realized he had to give some kind of explanation – the one he had been avoiding because giving it to Sam also meant giving it to himself, and a part of him maybe feared that things would make too much sense then. “It’s hard to explain,” he began none-the-less. “My reasons were pretty selfish, though, if that’s any consolation to you. I… wanted to belong. With someone.” And yeah, that made sense.  
   
Sam seemed to think so, too. “What about your friends? Your family? You’re not lonely.”  
   
“I’m not. But I don’t have family. At least not that I know of.”  
   
In Sam’s eyes Dean could see sympathy. Perhaps he had forgotten that he had even less. “What happened?”  
   
“Well, you’re not going to believe this, but I lost my memory. Just like you. About a yeah ago, I was found by the side of the road beside my car, not ten miles from here and I never remembered anything before that.”  
   
Sam raised his eyebrows. He was right – how likely was that?  
   
“Did you ever find out who you are? There must have been someone missing you.”  
   
No one ever missed Sam, but he didn’t seem to think the same should apply to Dean. “To be honest, I never looked.” He shook his head at himself, for the first time realizing how absurd that was. “I just… didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to think about it. I was happy like this. I kind of forgot there ever was a life before this.”  
   
“And that doesn’t seem strange to you?” Sam whispered.  
   
“Actually, no. Yeah, I know, that’s odd. I kind of think so now, yet I still don’t really care. I have my job, my friends, and just thinking about my past makes me head swim. Except it was never… there was always something missing. And I didn’t even realize it until I met you.” The next words were possibly the most girly ones Dean would ever say and he really hoped Sam wouldn’t bother to remember them later. “The idea of you going away terrifies me. And I don’t scare easily.”  
   
Sam snorted softly, but he still looked pale and somewhat lost and Dean didn’t know what to make of that. Sam’s hand found his face, though, and cupped his cheek and how bad could it be if he was doing that? Why did he look so scared?  
   
Dean climbed up the bed that was so much higher than his own and stretched out alongside his housemate, his lover. Sam clung to him as if Dean’s closeness would protect him from something Dean couldn’t even see. “So there you have it,” Dean murmured. “All selfishness on my part. I know saints don’t fit in your worldview, anyway. We good?”  
   
“I don’t know,” Sam whispered. “I don’t know.” And that wasn’t what Dean was hoping for but yeah, better than No.  
   
Sam was trembling, though, so Dean pulled the blanket over both of them and held him close. Sam held him right back, and perhaps Dean needed to be held just as much as him. “It’s just so odd,” Sam said. “Don’t you think this is a little too much of a coincidence? Both of us losing our memory at the same time, both of us not interested in getting it back, and then being so drawn to each other.”  
   
“Now you mention it, it’s kind of suspicious,” Dean agreed, a little reluctantly. He didn’t really want to think about this. He just wanted to lie here, hold Sam, and relish the fact that his life was now better than before, with this crippled, insane little bitch at his side. “But we found ourselves in entirely different parts of the country. Unlikely that we were sitting in a car together, crashed and were separated due to amnesia like couples in telenovelas.”  
   
“And yet I ended up here.”  
   
“Coincidences do exist, you know?”  
   
Sam made a none-committal sound, and Hell, why couldn’t he just accept things the way they were and shut up about it? Always had to question everything, from “If Dad was here on Christmas then why didn’t he wake me up?” to “How could Cas possibly burn the wrong bones?” The thoughts were out of Dean’s mind before he even finished thinking them, leaving only a feeling of uneasiness in their wake.  
   
“You wanna do research on out pasts?” he asked. “See if there’s a shared secret or some evil organization that erased our memories because we knew too much?”  
   
“No” Sam admitted. “I don’t. And I think there’s something wrong with that.”  
   
He was probably right, but Dean was tired of thinking about it. For now, at least. Now he wanted to cuddle and forget that he had to go to work tomorrow.  
   
“I have to go to work tomorrow,” he said. “I think there is something wrong with _that_.”  
   
Sam made an annoyed sound. “You’re getting off topic.”  
   
“It’s kind of a very real, very pressing topic.”  
   
“You’re right.” Suddenly Sam was sounding a somewhat down again, and okay, his mood changes always took Dean a little unprepared, even on good days. And this was a very good day. “If I’m staying,” Sam continued, giving Dean an idea what was wrong this time. “If I’m staying here I can’t just go on living like this, eating your food, without contributing to the income.”  
   
And there went Dean’s good mood, because how could he possibly say, “You’re too crazy to work,” without making Sam even more depressed.  
   
The way he sounded so sad, he was probably thinking the same anway.  
   
“First of all you have to get back on your feet, to whatever measure that’s gonna be in the end. Then we’ll see. I’m pretty sure there are plenty of things that can be done from home.”  
   
Sam didn’t reply, clearly not convinced. And why would he be? Even working from home it would have to be something that wouldn’t suffer from him losing it every now and then. But Dean would think about it when the time came. If it was just up to him Sam wouldn’t need to work at all, but Dean could well imagine how useless he would feel if he didn’t. And perhaps a purpose would help him stay grounded.  
   
“We’re gonna cross that bridge when we come to it,” Dean decided. “Let’s see what the doc says tomorrow. First your surgery, then thoughts on the future, okay?” He kissed the top of Sam’s head. “You hungry?”  
   
“No. Cold. Tired.”  
   
Not a surprise, there. Sam was rarely hungry and always cold. Dean was pretty hungry himself, but it could wait. “Sleep, then. I could do with a nap myself.” It was a lie, actually – so Dean was mildly surprised when he started to drift off just a few minutes later.  
   
He heard the ringing of the doorbell, but couldn’t summon the energy to wake up and go there. This was nicer. Whoever it was could come back tomorrow if it was so damn important.  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
The sound of footsteps penetrated Dean’s dreams before he was even fully asleep. For a moment, he was convinced that Sam had gotten up and was now sneaking about, trying to be quiet so Dean wouldn’t be disturbed, but Sam was usually better at being quiet than that and finally Dean remembered that Sam couldn’t even walk.  
   
Then he became aware that he was hardly even hearing the footsteps. It was more an instinct warning him of the presence of someone else, and the same instinct made him reach for a weapon that wasn’t there. (Why would it?)  
   
His movements woke Sam, who tensed immediately. He was lying perfectly still, but Dean sensed that all his attention was focused on the outside of this room.  
   
Both of them sat upright in shock when the door was opened and a man stepped inside. He was older, old enough to be their father, and he was holding a gun in his hand, and his eyes were wide as he stared at them.  
   
Dean stared back, and so did Sam. The man didn’t point his gun at them; instead he lowered it as if it had become too hard to lift it up.  
   
Sam pressed against Dean and Dean could feel him tremble. He was too aware of their nakedness, feeling vulnerable, defenseless. He couldn’t even imagine how Sam was feeling but he felt him tremble and knew that whatever progress Sam had made last night, it had disappeared the moment this stranger walked into the room.  
   
So Dean hissed, “What the fuck are you?” and was ready to jump into the guy’s face more for the fact that he had disturbed Sam than that he had come into their bedroom with a gun in his hand.  
   
But the man stumbled back before Dean could even move. His face lost all color and he turned his face towards the ceiling and cursed, “That son of a bitch!”  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
“Just, for God’s sake, just get dressed. I’ll be waiting outside.”  
   
The man didn’t seem worried that Dean might take a gun of his own and shoot him. He just retreated, almost fled, from the room, closing the door behind him.  
   
Dean didn’t intend to get dressed. He was wearing pants and so was Sam and that had to be enough.  
   
“You okay?” He cupped Sam’s face, held it still. Sam nodded, but he was still trembling.  
   
“I know him, Dean,” he said. “I’ve hallucinated him. I’ve seen him die.”  
   
It just kept getting stranger. “Wait here,” Dean ordered. “I’ll take care of this.”  
   
“No.” For all Sam’s confusion, his voice was not lacking in firmness. If Dean left him here he would crawl after him, that much was clear.  
   
“Are you sure?”  
   
“I need to talk to him. Where is…”  
   
“Outside by the couch. C’mon.”  
   
Sam grabbed the thin jacket slung over the bedpost and slipped it on before slinging his arms around Dean’s neck and allowing him to lift him up. Dean himself refused to dress into any more than he was because some old guy breaking and entering into his home did not get to dictate what he should wear for their meeting. He did understand, though, that Sam needed the illusion of security clothing provided.  
   
The stranger was pacing up and down the room, between door and couch, his face troubled and his gun gone. His frown deepened in confusion when Dean entered the room with Sam in his arms, then his expression turned, briefly, to anger, then to worry as he watched Dean carefully place his precious burden in the wheelchair.  
   
“What the hell is going on?” he asked gruffly. “What’s wrong with him?”  
   
“Take a wild guess,” Dean growled back. Sam wrapped the jacket tighter around himself and seemed perfectly content with staring at the man with a pale face and otherwise leave the talking to Dean.  
   
“Who the fuck are you and what are you doing here?” Really, Dean should have called the police. He didn’t even know what he was doing here or why he thought it was a good idea to take Sam along. But then, Sam looked ready to flip and Dean certainly wasn’t going to leave him alone so he could mutilate himself some more.  
   
“You really don’t remember me, do you?” The man groaned and sat down on the couch as if he could no longer stand. “That explains a lot. What happened to Sam?”  
   
Sam flinched the moment his name was spoken and Dean instinctively moved in front of him. “How about you first tell us who you are and why I shouldn’t shoot you where you stand?”  
   
“Name’s Bobby Singer. I’m a friend. Been looking for you for a long time.”  
   
“Why would you?”  
   
“Friend, Dean,” Sam muttered. Dean threw him an annoyed look. Sam still looked imbalanced, to say the least, but at least he seemed to have a relaxed a little.  
   
“How can we know that? How do we know it’s not his fault we can’t remember anything in the first place.”  
   
“That wasn’t me, that was Castiel.” Singer spit the name like it was something particularly distasteful. Dean and Sam shared a look and shook their heads.  
   
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Dean said.  
   
“No shit, dumbass. That doesn’t exactly come as a surprise right now.”  
   
“Why would he do that? Who’s Castiel?”  
   
“An angel,” Sam whispered.  
   
Dean whipped around. “What? Bullshit! Shut up, Sammy, you don’t remember shit.”  
   
“How _do_ you know that?” Bobby asked, very interested.  
   
Sam seemed to shrink into himself. “There’s… There’s a guy standing behind Bobby. He said so.” He was staring at something just behind Singer and then he flinched and clenched his fists. Dean knew if he follower his gaze he wouldn’t see anything.  
   
To his surprise, Singer seemed to know as well, because he looked pained but didn’t turn around. “Still hallucinating? Well, there goes a terrible plan if I’ve ever seen one.”  
   
“How do you know that?” Dean snapped. He had the odd urge to take Sam into his arms and shield him but didn’t move.  
   
“Because I know you! And I know Sam. Better than you know each other at the moment.”  
   
“I think I know Sam very well, thank you very much.”  
   
“Yeah?” The man glared at Dean in a way that made him ridiculously uncomfortable. “Do you know, then, that he’s your brother? Because I didn’t get that impression just now.”


	5. Chapter 5

If there was a list of the most shocking things to learn about the guy one just slept with, this had to pretty much at the top of it. Dean had to sit down once the words sank in. Sam didn’t, but only because he was already sitting. He was trembling harder than before and didn’t look at anyone.  
   
“Bullshit,” Dean finally said. He was suddenly cold, too aware that he still wasn’t wearing a shirt. “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here, but do you really think any of us is gonna buy that? Brothers my ass. Don’t you think there’d be some sort… some sort of safety in our brains that would prevent something like that?”  
   
“He’s right,” Sam whispered, barely audible. His eyes were closed and his hands buried in his hair. “He’s right, Dean.”  
   
“How would you know? Your hallucinations told you?” Dean regretted the outburst the moment it happened but it was too late. Sam seemed to curl into himself and just… disappear. Whatever happened around him, Dean could tell that he had no part in it anymore. Fuck.  
   
“This is all your fault!” Dean yelled at Singer. “What business do you have coming here? Things were going great. I don’t know what we forgot, but the fact that neither of us wanted to remember tells me it was good to leave that life. We’re fine here, and now you have to break everything!”  
   
Singer looked at him, unfazed. “You never tried to remember because you were programmed not to,” he said calmly. “By an old… friend who meant well but made everything worse.”  
   
Dean wasn’t even listening anymore. The guy was right. Dean knew he was right. He knew there was a whole world of things he didn’t want to know just waiting to be discovered.  But most of all he knew that Sam was whimpering and digging his fingers into his mutilated arm and Dean had to stop him, or maybe he didn’t because stopping him would make things worse. So he sat there and half-heartedly tried to pull Sam’s hands away but then he stopped because he promised, he _promised_ Sam he understood, that he wouldn’t keep him from hurting himself if it helped. But did that even count anymore now that he was Sam’s brother? Didn’t being Sam’s brother mean that he couldn’t sit by and watch him bleed?  
   
In the end he pulled Sam close and whispered words in his ears. Telling him it was alright, as if he could ever believe that himself.  
   
“This was supposed to get better.” Singer sounded helpless. He also looked at them in disapproval, as if he thought since they were brothers now they shouldn’t touch anymore, that Dean’s naked arms had no business wrapping around Sam’s shivering from. So fuck, what kind of douchebag had he been that he wouldn’t comfort his little brother when he needed it? That he thought this was wrong?  
   
“Fuck off,” he growled. ”Leave us alone. Whatever happened, it did get better. This has to be better.”  
   
Sam whispered, “Dean, Dean, oh God, Dean, please,” and Bobby growled, “I didn’t look for you for more than a frigging year only to leave just because some asshole angel toasted your brain. I’m going to fix this, son:”  
   
“What are you, our father?”  
   
“Something close enough.”  
   
Sam whimpered again. Dean noticed that the tips of his fingers were stained with blood, and okay, that was enough now. “Sammy,” he hissed. “Sammy, focus. It hurts, right? Look at me, and focus on the pain. I’m real. Rely on that.”  
   
Much to his relief Sam did look at him. He was crying and his expression broke Dean’s heart, but he focused and seemed to pull himself together for a moment, before his eyes fell on Singer and he winched again.  
   
“Go away!” Dean told the man once more. “Don’t you see that you’re hurting him? He doesn’t know what’s real on the best of days and now he doesn’t know if you’re just one of his hallucinations. He hallucinates so much shit and doesn’t even know why!”  
   
“He’s bleeding.” Singer sounded alarmed, apparently hadn’t noticed until now.  
   
“Yeah, he does that. Hurting himself helps, so we let him, okay? He can only get through this by causing himself pain, so do you really want him to go back to that full time?”  
   
“Don’t you think it might help him if he at least knew where his hallucinations come from?”  
   
“Oh yeah, having all the memories they are based on must be a blast! Tell me, how was he doing before someone knocked us over?”  
   
“At least he wasn’t hurting himself!”  
   
“Dean,” Sam whimpered again. “Shut up.”  
   
Dean stared at him. “What?”  
   
“Shut up. Both of you. You’re too loud. Let me think.” He took a deep breath and still refused to look up. “I need to get outside.”  
   
That, at least, Dean could do for him. He pushed the wheelchair past the front door and to the back, where they would be safe from prying eyes. Singer, as expected, followed, but Dean ignored him for now.  
   
Outside, Sam took a few breaths and then threw up. He managed to avoid hitting the side of the wheelchair with the meager contents of his stomach so perfectly that Dean couldn’t help but wonder if he’d practiced.  
   
“Hey, hey.” He patted Sam’s back. “It’s okay.”  
   
“No, it’s not.” Now, finally, Sam looked up, looked at Singer, and said, “Bobby.”  
   
Singer stiffened. “You remember me, Kid?”  
   
“No. Tell me. Who are you? What happened?”  
   
“See?” Singer glared at Dean. “He wants to know.”  
   
“No, I don’t,” Sam clarified. “I really don’t. But I have to. And it’s hard to even ask, so just tell me already.”  
   
Dean didn’t want him to tell them. He didn’t want to hear. He wanted to run so he didn’t have to, wanted to take Sam away from here, or better even shut Singer up before he could open his mouth, in any way it took. But he recognized, at least, that that wasn’t natural, that there was something inside him that forced him to avoid these questions and that was what made him clench his fists and stay and fucking listen, because if there was one thing he hated it was anybody telling him what he wanted to do.  
   
Now he had permission, Singer took his sweet time telling them, as if suddenly he wasn’t sure if it was really such a good idea. But he did, in the end. And Dean and Sam fucking listened.  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
So what information Dean got out of it in the end was that they had had a shitty life (non-defined) and an angel for a friend who fucked up and got eaten by purgatory. He also learned that he had gone to Hell once to save Sam and that then Sam had gone to Hell to save the world (and Dean had let him, how the fuck could he let him go to Hell, what kind of brother was he, anyway?) and had come back after centuries all kinds of fucked over.  
   
So yeah, what it came down to, what mattered here was that Dean had let Sam go to Hell and now Sam was messed up for the rest of forever.  
   
He had been fine, and then their friend the angel, in order to get eaten by purgatory, broke the wall that protected Sam from his memories of the pit and made him crazy. And then he was eaten, but not before Sam had forgiven him (Seriously, Sam, what the fuck?) and the angel had tried to make up for the mess he caused in his last moments.  
   
“He knew his new power was tearing him apart, but as long as he still had it he wanted to use it to help you,” Singer explained. “Unfortunately, he didn’t really know what he was doing. He wanted Sam to be free from the memories of Hell, and he wanted the two of your to be happy. That’s what he told me, just before he snuffed it. For all I saw, Cas apologized and then you were gone. He wouldn’t even tell me where, only that you would be okay. Better off than before.”  
   
“And you didn’t believe him?” Dean asked skeptically.  
   
“If someone took Sam away and told you he was happy somewhere else, would you just take it for face value?”  
   
It was a damn good argument.  
   
“But we are better off,” Dean said helplessly. “I was happy here, and now Sam…” He trailed off. Sam had been miserable, locked away in his apartment, half-insane, and now he was crippled and still half-insane and here…  
   
“I couldn’t find Sam,” Singer recounted. “There was the article about the guy they found without memory in Wisconsin and the description sounded like Sam, but he was gone when I got there and I lost all trace of him. Then I finally stumble over a trace of you, Dean, and I find you here working your job, living in a house and I thought, okay, maybe it’s not so bad. Then I come in and find Sam right there in your bed.”  
   
“It was Sam’s bed,” Dean interrupted him as if there was a fucking point to it. There wasn’t, and Bobby just ignored him.  
   
“And Sam’s skinny as hell and in a wheelchair and still hallucinating even though he doesn’t remember what or why, and goddamn hurting himself, and can you tell me how exactly any of that sounds okay for you?”  
   
“It was okay. Sam was getting better. You think he’s going to improve if he remembers all the shit his hallucinations are about?”  
   
“You think it might be a good idea to stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here?” Sam snapped. He looked up, looked at them with his damn wet eyes and still trembling. He was practically clawing at his injured arm, but he was also very much with them. “Bobby’s right, Dean. This isn’t us. You must have felt that just as much as I did. Something’s wrong, something’s missing all the time. And I can’t even think about it and it’s driving me crazy…”  
   
Dean had to agree with that. Having this conversation was making him want to scream.  
   
“Okay,” he forced out. His hands were clenched so tightly his nails were digging painfully into his palms. “Can you reverse it?”  
   
“I think I can,” Bobby said. “But it’s gonna take a few days. And you need to come with me.”  
   
“And then? We just leave here? Leave everything behind, drop off the map like we have done apparently all our fucking lives? My job, Sam’s… fuck, Sam’s surgery is next week.”  
   
Bobby looked alarmed. “What surgery?” He asked it with the suspicious tone of someone not entirely trusting hospitals and doctors.  
   
“For his legs. So maybe he might be able to walk again. And by walk again I mean hopple around on crutches for half an hour a day.” The more Dean thought about this the worse an idea it seemed, and his voice turned to venom before without his consent. “Hardly the best circumstances to spend your time hunting monsters and running from the law, I would think.”  
   
Bobby didn’t look at him. “We should stay here until that is done with,” he decided. “After this is over… well, it’s up to you if you want to stay here or come back with me.”  
   
He said that like they actually had a choice.  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
Surprisingly enough, it was Sam who panicked. And panicking in this case meant going quiet and sad and doubtful, saying, “You know that this is it. If we remember, there’s no turning back. This is over.”  
   
“How can you be so sure?” Dean asked. “We could just stay here. With all memories. Just say and give the world a big fuck you.”  
   
They were alone; Bobby had left for a moment to check out of the motel he had been staying in since he arrived in town yesterday. From now on he would move into the upper rooms Dean hardly ever used anymore because Sam couldn’t get there. He said he wanted to make sure they were alright, that he had been looking for them for too long to move into a freaking motel, and besides, they had bunked at his place so often it was only fair. He seemed genuinely concerned, too, especially about Sam, but at the same time Dean was sure that the older man just wanted to keep an eye on them. Make sure they didn’t bail and make sure they didn’t fuck.  
   
Dean looked at Sam and he, too, knew that this would be over, or maybe it already was. He would never kiss Sam again, he would never make love to him again, though he was sure that he wouldn’t love him any less. He wondered if it would just disappear, that desperate desire for this kid; if the love would change into something less sexual and more brotherly. Right now, he could not imagine it and wondered if Sam felt the loss like he did.  
   
“We already can’t go back,” Sam whispered, and as much as Dean didn’t want to acknowledge it, he was right.  
   
He kissed him just out of spite. Sam kissed back.  
   
Maybe fate would be kind to them for once and make them forget all this. But then, when had things ever been that easy?  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
There was one thing Dean learned about Sam in the following days: he was a tough son of a bitch. And okay, so he’d kind of known that before, but it was fascinating to see him white-knuckle it through the day. Looking at Singer still obviously made him nearly crazy, but he managed not to flip out and he managed not to hurt himself too badly. Not at first. Not while Dean was watching.  
   
Looking at Singer nearly made Dean crazy as well, Especially since the man treated them like they knew everything. After the first day he just seemed to forget that they had forgotten. He set up camp in the kitchen, spread books and papers out all around and growled at them whenever he wanted something. He would causally talk about things they had done together and sometimes Dean would answer as if he knew what this was all about and then he would realize what he had done and try not to throw up because the memories of some event or another were all there, pooling in his mind and he didn’t want them.  
   
For Sam it had to be so much worse. He was mostly quiet, mostly kept out of the way, and sometimes he answered to tings that no one had said, but he never reached for the kitchen knife and stabbed Singer out of frustration and self-defense as Dean sometimes wanted to.  
   
In fact, Dean was halfway convinced that the only reason he didn’t do it, or didn’t at least flip out completely, was because Sam didn’t, and if Sam could be that strong, then Dean definitely had to.  
   
There was a limit to what Sam could take, though – or maybe it would have happened anyway, because no matter what Dean liked to tell himself, Sam was suffering from a mental illness and their sex hadn’t magically cured it. It was only a matter of time before it got bad again, really bad. Perhaps it had always been heading towards the point where Dean couldn’t handle it anymore and he had just been too blind to see, too willing to ignore. Just as he had been willing to ignore the fact that he knew the body beneath his hands too well for them to have never met before.  
   
Sam’s nightmares were getting worse and Dean definitely blamed that one on Singer. Sam had often woken up disturbed, but until the other man moved in he had never woken up screaming.  
   
He calmed down after Dean came for him. After the first moments of confusion, after a brief struggle and “No, Michael, please.” After Dean wrapped him in his arms and held him so fucking tight.  
   
Sam had never had nightmares when he fell asleep on the couch leaning against Dean, or in the car leaning against Dean, or just anywhere Dean was near him, so Dean started to let Sam sleep in his own, larger bed, climbed in with him and held him when they slept, and if Bobby was staring from the doorway and frowning and generally being a bitch about it that was his fucking problem.  
   
But that wasn’t enough. Sam might not have woken up in tears anymore but the constant stress was wearing him down. If Dean was going crazy from the leaking memories about every day stuff he could barely even grasp and didn’t want to, he could only imagine how Sam was feeling with centuries of Hell standing in line and knocking on his door. Eventually, he snapped. And it didn’t happen in one big explosion, it happened quietly, in is room, while Dean was having breakfast.  
   
Sam was quiet when Dean got up and his friend (Lover? Brother?) left him alone. After breakfast, Sam still hadn’t emerged, or made a sound, so Dean went to check on him, see if he needed help. Sam could get into his chair on his own, but it was hard and painful and sometimes he just didn’t feel up to it. When Dean opened the door, however, it was to Sam shaking and crying and taking a razor blade to his arm.  
   
He had placed a towel on the sheets to protect them from the blood because even flipping out Sam was too damn practical to just go and soil everything and leave traces and shit. And Dean though that Sam was a fucking asshole because cuts in his flesh were pretty damn obvious traces and how exactly did he plan on making them disappear before he was in the hospital and being undressed by people who thought that Dean was a loser who couldn’t watch out for him and just waited for a reason to take him away?  
   
And then he thought that Sam’s immune system was shot to Hell and he’d get an infection again and the surgery would be postponed again and this damn terrible situation just wouldn’t end.  
   
So he stopped Sam and took away his blade. Disinfected the cuts with alcohol and wrapped them up, all the time cursing and growling, and Sam was rocking back and forth and then clung to him like Dean could save his life by not going away. As if he had any plans of going away. Dean wasn’t going anywhere.  
   
And Sam cupped his face, twisted his long fingers into Dean’s short hair and said, “Please, please,” and “Dean,” and what the Hell was Dean supposed to do but help him? Sam wasn’t his brother. Sam wouldn’t be his brother for another few days.  
   
It was different this time, with Dean knowing what to do, with Sam knowing he could help and just accepting it, accepting everything, like before but with a desperate gratitude that hadn’t been there the first time. And Bobby was sitting two rooms away, oblivious, but he would stop them if he knew, he would give them Hell. This time they knew. There was no excuse for doing this.  
   
Dean came harder than ever before in his remembered life.  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
Sam came out more after that. He sat with Bobby. He talked to Bobby. Bobby, much to Dean’s relief, never tried to dump a load of information about their old lives on him but merely asked for help with some translation or other, and research about demonic activities and something called a black dog. Sam did so without questions, looking like he had never done anything else.  
   
Dean watched them from a distance and couldn’t imagine that this was what they had done. It was crazy (and it felt like home).  
   
He didn’t go to work those final days, called in sick instead and nearly forgot to do even that. There was no way he would leave Sam alone with this familiar stranger who was destroying their world.  
   
When it was time, when they brought Sam to the hospital and he was getting prepared for his surgery, Dean was ready to lose it. There was the anticipation of what would come after, with Bobby and their memories they didn’t want, but there was also the nervousness that always came with someone cutting his brother up, and the ridiculous, stupid and dangerous hope that despite every prognosis the doctor would come out and tell Dean that they had been wrong, it wasn’t quite that bad and Sam would make a full recovery.  
   
That wasn’t going to happen. Sam knew that, which perhaps was the reason why he was so much calmer than Dean. But then, perhaps he just was much better at dealing with being nervous, or stressed, or afraid.  
   
Perhaps it was simply worse to worry about someone else. If that had been Dean there about to be cut up, Sam might have been climbing the walls just as much.  
   
But when they had to leave Sam alone to get prepared for surgery, Sam held on to Dean’s hand like he didn’t want to let him go. Didn’t want to be left alone with these strangers. Dean got that. Dean got that his presence had come to ground Sam and give him a sense of security and he nearly told all those doctors to stuff it, he wasn’t going to leave Sam alone, ever.  
   
Sam then looked at him, openly in a way he rarely did. He pulled Dean down, put his long hands to either side of his head and kissed him, right there in front of everyone. Right in front of Bobby.  
   
Then he let him go and was taken away. It was only when he was out of sight that Dean realized it had felt like goodbye.  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
“Let’s go for a ride.”  
   
Dean could only blink when he heard the words. They did not compute. Sam was in surgery, maybe had flipped out before they sedated him, maybe was having nightmares, maybe would never walk again. Maybe something would go wrong randomly and a doctor would come out to find Dean, and in that case Dean had to be fucking present.  
   
“What the fuck? I’m not going anywhere.”  
   
“The surgery’s going fine. And it’s going to take a few hours more. And really, do you actually believe you’re any use to your brother sitting here worrying about him until you get kinks in your neck?”  
   
Dean automatically moved his head. His neck popped.  
   
Bobby looked annoyed. It seemed to be a normal expression on his face. “We’ll just sit in the damn car, where we can talk. We won’t be far, and they have your number.”  
   
He kind of reminded Dean of Bob, except Bob had more hair. And other than with Bob, who had tried and tried to talk Dean out of taking in Sam, Bobby actually succeeded in getting Dean to the car. In fact, he got Dean to the car and Dean only really noticed that Bobby had slipped into the driver’s seat when he started the engine and drove off.  
   
“You said we were just going to talk!”  
   
“We’re talking, idjit. And it’s easier if you can’t run.”  
   
So they would talk about stuff Dean didn’t want to talk about. What a surprise.  
   
“He’s your brother, Dean,” Bobby said, and of course it had to be that. In all fairness, Dean kind of had that coming.  
   
“He’s not. Not yet. I don’t remember him being my brother. He’s just this kid that lives with me.” It was probably not the best tactic to get all defensive but Dean couldn’t help himself. Something made him want to escape this guy’s disapproval.  
   
“He is your brother, and you know it. I can forgive what happened before, but earlier today? What the Hell were you thinking?”  
   
“I didn’t kiss Sam! Sam kissed me!”  
   
Bobby only glared, so yeah, stupid tactic. And Dean hadn’t exactly pushed the kid away either.  
   
“Isn’t it enough that it will stop soon?” Dean asked desperately. “You’re taking everything away from us here, and I have no idea how Sam will take it. He’s so,,, fragile.” It almost felt wrong to use that word on Sam, despite it being evidently accurate. “You said he wasn’t like this before. Do you think he’ll get better?”  
   
“I don’t know, son.” The grim disapproval disappeared from Bobby’s face and was replaced with tired concern. “He hadn’t had his Hell-memories back for long when you were taken away. But he wasn’t doing so well then either. Maybe it would always have gotten this bad.”  
   
Dean sighed. The car hummed around him and he knew that it always had. No one had to tell him that, he just always felt at home in this car. From the moment it had been presented to him after he woke up without memory a year ago he had known that this was his car.  
   
“Why didn’t it work?” he asked, not even realizing that he was basking in the familiarity of this scene rather than being repulsed by it. “For Sam. I thought this was supposed to help him but it only made things worse.”  
   
Outside the window, trees moved past them. They were driving through the forest just past the city limit that Dean for some reason had never entered before. Maybe there was a Wendigo in here, he thought.  
   
“I can only speculate on that. I fear it’s because it’s his soul that’s injured. The damage transcends mere memory. There’s no fixing it.”  
   
“So Sam won’t get better? Ever?”  
   
“He’s strong. He’ll learn to deal.” But the words sounded empty, lacking conviction. Not at all like Das had sounded when he told Dean that his little brother would get over his resentment of their lifestyle and learn to embrace it. John Winchester had always thought that he could shape other people’s will by the pure power of his own. With Dean it had worked, so he never figured out why with Sammy it didn’t.  
   
“Bobby,” he Dean said dully. “Did you want us to come with you because you knew that our memories would just return like that once we’re got where we came from?”  
   
“That was the idea,” Bobby said grimly and took a turn that would take them out of the woods.  
   
Dean was quiet all the way back to the city.  
   
   


  


-

   
   
   
He was with Sam when he woke up. Bobby was not. Bobby was leaving them alone, taking care of something or other, so it was just Dean, holding Sam’s hand and counting his breaths.  
   
Sam came to slowly and without panic. Dean had been prepared for disorientation and fear but Sam just opened his eyes and blinked at him, and after a moment of uncertainty he gave a faint smile. A sad smile. It seemed he was looking for something in Dean’s face and Dean didn’t know if he found it or found it lacking, but he knew Sam found certainty of something.  
   
“You remember,” he whispered, hoarsely because his voice was gone and he was weak and tired.  
   
Dean nodded and he wasn’t even surprised that Sam knew, or that he had remembered before him.  
   
“When did you?” he asked.  
   
“At some point yesterday or the day before, I didn’t even notice. I kept wondering if Bobby had finally gotten the new dog he’d been thinking about while we were gone.”  
   
It was a long sentence that left Sam out of breath. Dean put a hand to his forehead and wordlessly told him to rest. He almost bent down to kiss him but remembered in time. It was over.  
   
When Sam woke the second time early the next morning, he looked at Dean and said, “We should leave.”  
   
It was stupid to go before he had recovered; they had good insurance and Sam would get all the care they could hope for. But Dean understood. He _knew_.  
   
And so did Sammy. This wasn’t them. This wasn’t theirs.  
   
He and Bobby took Sam away before noon, in a stolen ambulance, to some place that Bobby knew from long ago where no one would find them.


	6. Chapter 6

It the realization came to Dean only three days later, when they were in some cabin in Whitefish, Montana, and Bobby was gone, leaving them alone for the first time since they got here.  
   
They hadn’t taken much from Dean’s house. Sam’s medication, Dean’s working clothes. Stuff that fit in the trunk of the Impala. Dean resigned his job in a phone call and never gave Gina on the other end of the line a chance to answer.  
   
Now the Impala was parked outside the cabin and Bobby was taking the ambulance, stripped of anything they might need, somewhere far away from here. Too conspicuous, too easy to track. Sam was sitting on the couch, his wheelchair in reaching distance and they would have to figure this out, would have to come up with a plan of how to save the world from the disgusting things that made Cas explode with one team member who would never walk again.  
   
Hobble, perhaps. Limp a little on crutches. Not walk. Not on those legs.  
   
Someone who was crazy. Whose way of dealing seriously, seriously sucked.  
   
Someone who was sane right now, and looking at Dean with a bit of a smile; an expression that Dean couldn’t read. Perhaps it was sad, perhaps not. Perhaps he would look different if he knew that Dean wanted to kiss him. That to him it wasn’t over, and to him it hadn’t started when he pulled Sam out of a fire for the third time.  
   
That he didn’t mourn the loss of his job and his house and his friends but he mourned the loss of this.  
   
Sam looked a little flushed from the fever that was still plaguing him. He was so thin, a far cry from the strong young man that had outgrown his older brother so long ago, but even further from the little boy who worshipped the ground Dean stood on. Those times were so far away, much further than fifteen or twenty years, for both of them. Now Sam was thin and trembling softly and Dean couldn’t read him.  
   
“Hey,” he said, putting a hand to Sam’s forehead to check his temperature, just to do that. Like the big brother he was. ‘How are you?’ he had meant to ask, and maybe tell Sam that they would fix this because the world was full of magic and powers that weren’t all bad if they were used to get him walking again. He hadn’t meant for his hand to run don’t Sam’s face and cub his cheek.  
   
Sam leaned into this touch and closed his eyes. That was when Dean finally got it.  
   
Sam had remembered before him. When he kissed Dean in the Hospital, he had already known.  
   
So Dean stood with his hand on Sam’s cheek and Sam opened his eyes and looked at him in a way that said everything, everything. And there were a million things to say, two million reasons why this was wrong and three million reasons why it would cause more problems than it solved, but Dean didn’t think of any of that, because it was okay to feel this way. It was okay with Sammy. It would be okay to kiss, here, as brothers and lovers and soul mates who might go to Heaven or to Hell, but would go there together.  
   
So Dean kissed Sam. It felt like sealing a deal that would sell his soul forever. And that was okay, too.


End file.
